APWA Reporter 12 2008

AMERICAN PUBLIC WORKS ASSOCIATION • DECEMBER 2008 • www.apwa.netAMERICAN PUBLIC WORKS ASSOCIATION • DECEMBER 2008 • www.apwa.net

Making the difference in our communities, in our profession and in our world

Public Works leaders and Managers

Workbook for Children

by Jan Goldbergillustrated by Sheila Bailey

Discovering the World of Public Works introduces K–5th grade students to the exciting world of public works. The program has four goals:

introduce children to four key areas of •public works: construction, traffic and transportation, solid waste, and water and wastewater,

inform children about basic public •safety concepts,

stimulate children’s interest in public •works as a career choice, and

increase society’s awareness of what •public works employees do for our communities.

Exploring the World of Public Works is an innovative and comprehensive curriculum designed for students in 6th–8th grade. The program has four key goals:

educate students about the role of •public works in their everyday lives,

show how public works improves every •community’s quality of life,

pique interest in public works as a •potential career, and

provide teachers and public works •professionals with well-developed lesson plans.

Instructor’s Guide

Student Almanac

by Brittany Barrbased on work by Jan Goldberg

Illustrated by Sheila Bailey

Now Offers K–8th Grade Curriculum!

Order TOday!1-800-848-APWA • www.apwa.net/bookstore

GIS Provides the Geographic Advantage

Copyright © 2008 ESRI. All rights reserved. The ESRI globe logo, ESRI, ESRI—The GIS Company, The Geographic Advantage, www.esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of ESRI in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.

Every day, public works practitioners need location-based information to make critical decisions. When you place geographic information system (GIS) technology at the core of a public works information system, you improve communication, data sharing, and decision making throughout your organization.

This geographic approach to data integration and information management enables you to maximize your data investments and better determine the conditions and vulnerability of your infrastructure. You are able to streamline your operations and better manage, visualize, and analyze your systems, including work order, asset management, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Public works departments use GIS to• Enhance customer service.• Improve decision making.• Raise public confi dence.• Increase return on investment.• Respond to unfunded mandates.

Achieve operational awareness, stay connected with issues, and maintain a clear picture of the status of your infrastructure.

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REV_APWA Ad_7x10 9/3/07 2:44 PM Page 1

December 2008 APWA Reporter 3

Vol. 75, No. 12

December2008

The APWA Reporter, the official magazine of the American Public Works Association, covers all facets of public works for APWA members including industry news, legislative actions, management issues and emerging technologies.

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENTI N S I D E A P W A

C O L U M N S

M A R K E T P L A C E

C A L E N D A R

W O R K Z O N E

F E A T U R E S

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President’s Message

Rep. DeFazio honored for public works achievements

Technical Committee News

A “Wrap”-up of the Leadership Competencies Series…as reported

from the kitchens of the Leadership and Management Committee

Cleaning up the Kitchen

First impressions of a first-timer in New Orleans

Washington Insight

International Idea Exchange

Ask Ann

Public Works Sacred Cows

Boomer crisis: real or perceived?

Succession Planning: a case study

When leadership really means “doing it yourself”

Aggressive Recruitment

LEADing the way in workforce planning

Geospatial Capital Program Management

Seven public works project management best practices

WorkZone: Your Connection to Public Works Careers

Products in the News

Professional Directory

Education Calendar

World of Public Works Calendar

Index of Advertisers

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4 APWA Reporter December 2008

Official Magazine of theAmerican Public Works Association

PUBLISHERAmerican Public Works Association2345 Grand Blvd., Suite #700Kansas City, MO 64108-2625(800) 848-APWA (Member Services Hotline)(816) 472-6100 (Kansas City metro area)FAX (816) 472-1610e-mail: [email protected]: www.apwa.net

EXECUTIVE DIRECTORPeter B. King

EDITORR. Kevin Clark

GRAPHIC DESIGNERJulie Smith

ADVERTISING SALESAmanda Daniel R. Kevin ClarkErin Ladd Kansas City LiaisonJennifer Wirz (800) 848-APWA(800) 800-0341

APWA WASHINGTON OFFICE1401 K. Street NW, 11th floorWashington, D.C. 20005(202) 408-9541 FAX (202) 408-9542

Disclaimer: The American Public Works Association assumes no responsibility for statements and/or opinions advanced by either editorial or advertising contributors to this issue. APWA reserves the right to refuse to publish and to edit manuscripts to conform to the APWA Reporter standards.

Publisher’s Notice: The APWA Reporter, December 2008, Vol. 75, No. 12 (ISSN 0092-4873; Publications Agreement No. 40040340). The APWA Reporter is published monthly by the American Public Works Association, 2345 Grand Boulevard, Suite 700, Kansas City, MO 64108-2625. Subscription rate is $155 for nonmembers and $25 for chapter-spon-sored students. Periodicals postage paid at Kansas City, MO and additional mailing offices. POSTMAS-TER: Send address changes to the APWA Reporter, 2345 Grand Boulevard, #700, Kansas City, MO 64108-2625. Canada returns to: Station A, P.O. Box 54, Windsor, ON N9A 6J5.

Reprints and Permissions: Information is available at www.apwa.net/Publications/Reporter/guidelines.asp.

© 2008 by American Public Works Association

Address Change?To alert us of a change to your membership record, contact an APWA Membership Specialist at (800) 848-APWA or [email protected].

The APWA Reporter is printed by Harmony Printing & Development Co., Liberty, MO.

Noel ThompsonAPWA President

Building a better, sustainable future

e are reminded again of the responsibility of lead-ership. W. Edwards De-ming once said no bank

failed due to the actions of a teller. He said banks fail due to the actions and inactions of management. Cur-rent problems in the financial world remind us that Deming was on the mark with his comments.

As I fulfill my duties as president of APWA I’m continually impressed by the caliber of people I meet in the public works profession. There are so many of you out there who are dedicated to your jobs and know how to do them well. Our public is well served by the thousands of pub-lic works professionals who make this world work every day.

When disaster strikes and our every-day public services are interrupted, it is the public works professionals who work above and beyond the call of duty for months after the televi-sion cameras have left the scene.

I am reminded of Deming’s com-ment because we owe our public works employees the best leadership we can muster. I’m confident your leadership team at APWA will be do-ing everything we can to live up to that commitment.

As we move forward, we plan to make sustainability a part of every-thing we do at APWA, and to use sustainability concepts as a mea-suring stick to assess our leadership performance. In many ways, we’ve been advocating sustainable prac-tices for many years. The public is now beginning to realize we can’t

continue down the same path of using our resources and depriving future generations of the quality of life we’ve come to expect. We have great members who have been ad-vocating for efficient use of public resources for years, and we need to bring those issues forward and raise them to a higher level.

At the same time, we need to be re-examining our own past practices in all areas of public works and look-ing for ways to improve. We should be confident that taking a hard look at what we’ve done doesn’t mean finding fault or assigning blame. Instead, it means adopting regular reflection on our actions as a part of the continuous improvement cycle we preach to our various choirs. And in doing so, we must remem-ber sustainability doesn’t just ap-ply to our projects. It applies to our people. The real key to being both successful and stable over time is to attract young professionals to our industry, develop their confidence, and give them the challenges and rewards that lead to long-term ca-reer satisfaction. If we achieve that, our teams will be stronger, our suc-cession plans robust, and our sus-tainability ensured.

I look toward 2009 with optimism. There are tremendous opportunities out there for us to take what we’ve learned and apply it to reduce our carbon footprint and the cost of public services. We also have the opportunity to reflect on our vast experience and renew our commit-ment to building public works to last and be an asset, not a burden,


on the next generation. Our predeces-sors planned and built some outstand-ing public works but didn’t always set up a funding mechanism to maintain those public assets. The interstate high-way system is but one example where we need to stretch our long-term hori-zon on sustainability.

In this issue of the APWA Reporter we have a series of articles from the Lead-ership and Management Committee fo-cusing on emerging issues and reflect-ing on our assumptions about public life. We have an article on the Boomer crisis, answering the question as to whether it’s real or imagined; and, how to deal with the problem of recruiting employees to replace the Boomers who leave the workforce as a follow-on. Our theme is how to sustain our public

works leadership in the years ahead.

I said I was inspired by the public works people I’ve encountered but I need to make special mention of those APWA members who have participated in our inaugural Emerging Leaders Program. Their energy, drive and commitment to making this a better world through public works gives me confidence our future is in good hands. The next group of Emerging Leaders has recently been formed and I’m expecting great things from them in the future as well.

We also should take some time to ex-amine some of our fundamental beliefs as in the article “Public Works Sacred Cows.” As I said earlier, we need to peri-odically reexamine where we are going and what we are doing to be sure we are still headed in the right direction.

If we are to build a sustainable better future for our communities, we need to adapt to change and refocus our efforts as we have in the past.

Finally, I want to continue the effort initiated by Past President Larry Frevert and renew my commitment to the position statement on leadership your Board of Directors adopted in June 2007 and which he quoted in his opening comments at the San Antonio Congress. This position statement, entitled “Building a Better Future,” can be accessed and reviewed at http://www.apwa.net/Advocacy/positions.asp (scroll down to the Leadership and Management section). The key message is APWA believes the application of sound management principles will lead to a better future for all Americans. To

AMERICAN PUBLIC WORKS ASSOCIATION Mission Statement: The American Public Works Association serves its members by promoting professional excellence and public awareness through education, advocacy and the exchange of knowledge.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS ADVISORY COUNCIL

PRESIDENTNoel C. ThompsonConsultantThompson ResourcesLouisville, KY

PRESIDENT-ELECTLarry T. Koehle, P.Eng.Vice President, InfrastructureASI Technologies, Inc.Brampton, ON

PAST PRESIDENTLarry W. Frevert, P.E.National Program Director/Public Works

HDR Engineering, Inc.Kansas City, MO

DIRECTOR, REGION IJean-Guy CourtemancheVice PresidentLe Group Courtemanche, Inc.Repentigny, QC

DIRECTOR, REGION IIEd Gottko, P.E.Town Administrator (retired)Town of Westfield, NJ

DIRECTOR, REGION IIIElizabeth TreadwayVice PresidentAMEC Earth & EnvironmentalGreensboro, NC

DIRECTOR, REGION IVShelby P. LaSalle, Jr.Chairman and CEOKrebs, LaSalle, LeMieux Consultants, Inc.

Metairie, LA

DIRECTOR, REGION VDavid L. Lawry, P.E.General Services DirectorCity of Elgin, IL

DIRECTOR, REGION VILarry Stevens, P.E.SUDAS DirectorIowa State UniversityAmes, IA

DIRECTOR, REGION VIIJimmy B. Foster, P.E.Senior Project ManagerHNTB CorporationPlano, TX

DIRECTOR, REGION VIIIAnn Burnett-TroisiGovernmental Liaison for Pacific Bell (retired)

San Diego, CA

DIRECTOR, REGION IXDoug DreverManager of Strategic ServicesCity of Saskatoon, SK

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE,ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGYPatty Hilderbrand, P.E.Program Management & Development Manager

City of Kansas City, MO

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE,ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENTGeorge R. CrombieSecretary of Natural ResourcesState of VermontWaterbury, VT

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE,FLEET & FACILITIESMANAGEMENTKen A. NerlandDirector, General Services Dept.City of Fresno, CA

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE,PUBLIC WORKSMGMT./LEADERSHIPDiane Linderman, P.E.Director, Urban Infrastructure and Development Services

VHB, Inc. Richmond, VA

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE,TRANSPORTATIONSusan M. Hann, P.E., AICP, ICMA-CM

Deputy City ManagerCity of Palm Bay, FL

Robert Albee

Roger K. Brown

Myron D. Calkins

Joseph F. Casazza

Nick W. Diakiw

Robert C. Esterbrooks

Jerry M. Fay

Bob Freudenthal

Herbert A. Goetsch

J. Geoffrey Greenough

Ken Haag

Erwin F. Hensch

Robert S. Hopson

Ronald W. Jensen

Dwayne Kalynchuk

Martin J. Manning

James J. McDonough

Robert Miller

Lambert C. Mims

Judith M. Mueller

Ronald L. Norris

Michael R. Pender

Richard L. Ridings

John J. Roark

Harold E. Smith

June Rosentreter Spence

Tom Trice

William A. Verkest

Win Westfall

Carl D. Wills

(Past APWA Presidents)

Larry W. Frevert, Chair

Executive DirectorPeter B. King

Executive Director EmeritusRobert D. Bugher

Myron D. Calkins

Gordon R. Garner

Neil S. Grigg

Susan M. Hann

Stephen J. ONeill

Kyle E. Schilling

Editorial Advisory Board

Diversity Awareness Corner

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.” – Anne Frank

“As long as the differences and diversities of mankind exist, democracy must allow for compromise, for accommodation, and for the recognition of differences.” – Eugene McCarthy


that end, APWA will focus its efforts on programs and activities that lead to a public works vision for the future.

In these trying times it might be diffi-cult to focus on a better future, but that is what is required of great leadership. To quote from the paper: “Leaders can-not be pessimists. We cannot continue to describe how bad things are becom-ing. Continual focusing on deteriora-tion and the sins of the past leads to a sense of hopelessness that does not motivate citizens to action.”

What we need is a positive, inspir-ing vision of the future that can re-sult from sound application of public works management principles. This is no easy task. The easier task is forecast-ing the future and projecting today’s limited resources into that future. That almost always results in a bleak picture of underfunded maintenance and op-erations.

The hard job is creating a vision of what a properly run public works system can look like. It’s my hope we create that kind of a sustainable vision of the fu-ture in the coming years. I’m confident we have the necessary resources in place to create such a vision during the coming year as we incorporate sustain-ability into our programs and revisit the APWA Strategic Plan.

I appreciate the leadership shown by the Leadership and Management Com-mittee in the past and expect they and all of the other committees will step up their efforts during the coming year to provide the leadership our current and emerging leaders can emulate in their individual endeavors.

The 2009 membership dues rates are now posted online under the Member Tools section of www.apwa.net/MembersOnly. These rates will be effective for new mem-bers joining after January 1, 2009 and for renewal of any member-ships which expire between Janu-ary 31 and December 31, 2009.

ACCELERATEPutting O&M Best Practices into your Starting Line Up

There’s a cost for getting the water quality you create across the fi nish line, but a fi nely tuned O&M plan keeps quality on track throughout the distribution system.

Avoid unnecessary costs and wasted labor by giving your crew a Distribution System Optimization Plan. By comparing current eff orts to industry best practices, prioritizing programs and resources, you get O&M solutions that meet your unique system needs. That puts the torque back into your operating plan.

For results that qualify, contact HDR at [email protected].

www.hdrinc.com

You can search or post jobs directly from the APWA WorkZone homepage.

Now more than ever, WorkZone is the exclusive gateway to the most qualified candidates for public works positions. Posting is quicker and easier than ever, and your job openings will go online immediately—still giving you that competitive edge.

For an additional $250 and a simple click of a button, gain additional exposure for your position when you include your job opening in APWA’s Reporter magazine. APWA’s Reporter reaches more than 30,000 professionals monthly!

FOR EMPLOYERS:

APWA has launched WorkZone withNEW features to make your job offinding or posting a job more powerful.The enhanced site features include bulkpricing, mapping function, tailored job searchagents, free internship postings… and more. WorkZone is the exclusive site for employers to connect with job seekers in a more personal way. Check out the major upgrades and benefit from the morepowerful, more personal service.

Get the latest jobs & internships delivered toyour e-mail. Or find helpful tips and otherinformation to enhance career marketability allwith the click of the mouse. Bulk Pricing PlanEmployers can save by using the bulk pricing plan. Savings are based on the quantity of prepaid postings.

InternshipsAt no cost, APWA provides employers with a new recruitment vehicle and students with a new path to careers in public works.

Job searching on WorkZone is still free and you can still conduct targeted searches using keywords, job titles, and locations. You can even get a map of public works positions near you with our new map feature powered by Google®.

FOR JOB SEEKERS:

Log on to the website atapwa.net/workzone.

NEW FEATURES:


Maggie Oldham Government Affairs AssociateAmerican Public Works AssociationWashington, D.C.

n September 2007, then-APWA President Larry Frevert established the Chapter Advocacy Task Force to identify potential resources and possible tools that could be made available to chapters in order to enhance state, provincial

and local advocacy with an emphasis on legislative action.

The Task Force was comprised of eight members with Jim Coppola, New England Chapter, as the Chair. The mem-bers included Ron Calkins, Ventura Chapter; Doug Freder-icks, Sacramento Chapter; Daryl Grigsby, Washington State Chapter; David Lawry, Chicago Metro Chapter; Richard Rid-ings, Texas Chapter; Joel Riggs, Kansas City Metro Chapter; and Ric Robertshaw, Ontario Chapter. A kickoff meeting was held September 10, 2007 at the APWA Congress in San An-

tonio, Texas. In the months to follow, Task Force members held monthly conference calls and completed individual re-search tasks.

In order to tackle the challenge of identifying the level of chapter advocacy, the Task Force sent an electronic survey to all 64 chapters. According to the results, several chapters indicated they had Government Affairs Committees (GACs) and many reported they were interested in doing more re-garding advocacy. Constraints on the time that individual members were able to devote to advocacy were cited as a key challenge, and training and education were identified as im-portant elements of success. In addition to the survey, Task Force members conducted additional research, interview-

Chapter Advocacy Task Force prepares toolkit

APWA’s New Online Resource forSurface Transportation Authorization

SAFETEA-LU, the $286.4 billion federal law funding state and local transportation programs, expires in 2009. As stewards of our public infrastructure, we have an unprecedented opportunity with the next authorization to embark on a new day in transportation funding.

Visit http://reinvestintransportation.apwa.net where you will find information, tools and outreach materials to prepare for the upcoming debate. The new site features:

• A6-minutevideoexaminingwhatisatstakeandwhatweshould do about it

• AnadvocacyoutreachtoolkitwithtemplatesforwritingtoCongress,factsaboutAmerica’stransportationsystemandother useful tools

• AbrochurewithAPWA’sreauthorizationrecommendations• Thelatestlegislativeinformation,updatesandresourcesto

support your outreach efforts.

Now is the time to be actively engaged in the future of our transportation system. For more information, visithttp://reinvestintransportation.apwa.net or contact Becky Wickstrom at 202-218-6736 or [email protected].


ing chapters, identifying possible coalition partners and de-veloping a set of recommendations and guidance to assist chapters in their efforts.

These recommendations included establishing a chapter GAC; building coalitions with local affiliates of organiza-tions that are currently active in the advocacy arena; work-ing closely with state municipal leagues and county associa-tions, as well as provincial municipal associations; tracking and responding to legislation that impacts public works; broadcasting chapter-wide alerts for a “call to action”; de-veloping and presenting testimony at public hearings; and meeting with legislators.

The Task Force prepared a toolkit designed to aid chapters with their advocacy at the state, provincial and local lev-els. The toolkit contains various online resources, tips and a wealth of information and guidance and is designed for chapters at any level of advocacy engagement. It contains background information on the types of advocacy and how to start getting involved. At the same time, for those chapters already engaged in advocacy activities, the toolkit provides information regarding potential coalition partners, valuable online resources and information regarding tracking and re-sponding to legislation and issues that impact public works.

The document, titled “Chapter Advocacy Toolkit,” is avail-able for download at www.apwa.net/Advocacy.

Maggie Oldham can be reached at (202) 218-6712 or [email protected].

www.apwa.net/congress

2009 APWA International

PublIc Workscongress & Expositionseptember 13–16, 2009columbus convention centercolumbus, ohio

looking Forward—To columbus and beyond!

Nominations for national APWA appointment“Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.” – Vince Lombardi

APWA is soliciting nominations for appointments to national offices for the September 2009–August 2010 year. Step forward and offer your expertise to your pro-fession. Contact your local chapter to let them know you have an interest in serving at the national level. Information on appointments may be obtained on the APWA website at www.apwa.net/membersonly/nomi-nations or from Kaye Sullivan at National Headquarters at [email protected] or at (800) 848-APWA, ext. 5233. A brief bio must be completed online or through hard copy. Nominations must arrive at headquarters by close of business March 2, 2009.

Where else can you go to find over 1,000 public works professionals that have the very best knowledge and insight when it comes to fighting snow and providing winter road maintenance? Join your fellow industry experts from all across the U.S. and Canada for APWA’s North American Snow Conference in Des Moines, Iowa.

The American Public Works Association is the public works community’s number one resource for information and expertise on winter operations. The Snow Conference will showcase four days of quality programs and technical tours with opportunities to interact and exchange ideas with manufacturers, distributors, consultants, and other public works professionals.

The Snow Conference floor is better than ever, with more than 120 companies displaying their exhibits this year! Everything from innovative new equipment and technology to ground-breaking new products and services focused on snow and ice removal and winter operations will be on display.

Not only does the Snow Conference provide the most exciting exhibit-floor experience in the industry, it also features the very best in technical and educational programs. Energizing keynote speakers and industry experts will be on hand to moderate more than 40 top-notch education sessions, roundtable discussions and technical tours. These programs will offer valuable insight into the newest practices and procedures in snow and ice removal and winter road maintenance. Whether you are attending to learn how to simply upgrade your current winter operations or looking for innovative ideas that will help you to restructure your current practices, you’ll come away with a promising and detailed vision on how to accomplish your goals.

2009 APWA North American Snow Conference 2009 APWA North American Snow Conference 2009 APWA North American Snow Conference







Come get informed, inspired, and motivated at the 49th annual North American Snow Conference!

To view the full Program Preview, or to Register visit www.apwa.net/snow








Sunday, April 26Exhibit Hours:5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

1:00 – 2:00 p.m.Education Sessions


3:30 – 5:00 p.m.Opening General SessionTop Gun Leadership: How to Build a Culture of Courage at Work and in LifeKeynote Speaker: Rob “Waldo” Waldman

5:00 – 7:00 p.m.Exhibit Opening & Welcome Reception

Monday, April 27Exhibit Hours:9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

8:00 – 9:30 a.m.General Session “Talk Show”Winter’s Budget Impact

9:30 – 10:30 a.m.Coffee Break on the Exhibit Floor

10:30 – 11:20 a.m.Education Sessions

11:20 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.Non-compete Exhibit Time

12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m.Lunch on the Exhibit Floor

12:45 – 1:45 p.m.Roundtable Discussion Groups


2:50 – 3:30 p.m.Refreshment Break on the Exhibit Floor


Tuesday, April 28Exhibit Hours: 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.


9:00 – 10:10 a.m.Coffee Break on the Exhibit Floor


11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.Non-compete Exhibit Time

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.Lunch on the Exhibit Floor



3:00 – 4:30 p.m.Closing General SessionThe Spirit of the IditarodKeynote Speaker: Martin Buser

5:30 – 9:00 p.m.Living History Farms Dinner

Wednesday, April 298:00 a.m. – 12:00 noonTechnical Tour – Iowa Winter Operations

Come get informed, inspired, and motivated at the 49th annual North American Snow Conference!

To view the full Program Preview, or to Register visit www.apwa.net/snow


n October 23, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) was pre-sented with the 2008 Citation for Exemplary Ser-vice to Public Works during a luncheon at APWA’s Oregon Chapter.

“I am honored to present Rep. DeFazio with this much-de-served recognition,” said APWA President Noel Thompson. “As a tireless and committed advocate for transportation infrastructure investment, his leadership has produced im-proved safety and efficiency, an enhanced quality of life and protection of our natural resources.”

With more than 20 years in Congress, DeFazio played a key role crafting and negotiating SAFETEA-LU, the five-year, $286 billion federal transportation funding law. He current-ly serves as Chair of the House Transportation and Infra-

structure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. As part of his efforts under SAFETEA-LU, DeFazio helped designate four Oregon universities and nine others around the country as National University Transportation Centers (UTC). Each university receives grants to support transportation research and technological innovation.

“The UTCs utilize the next generation of innovative trans-portation professionals,” said Thompson. “Transportation students perform vital research and gain experience in keep-ing our national transportation system moving safely and efficiently, while strengthening the profession’s workforce with quality engineers.”

DeFazio has also advocated on behalf of water infrastructure and water quality, aviation and railroads, homeland secu-rity, infrastructure protection and natural resources.

The APWA Citation for Exemplary Service to Public Works recognizes an eminent government or other public service leader for their far-reaching, positive impact on local, state or national public works programs, services or policies.

Contributed by Becky Wickstrom, APWA Manager of Media Affairs, who can be reached at (202) 218-6736 or [email protected].

Rep. DeFazio honored for public works achievements

APWA President Noel Thompson (left) presents the 2008 Citation for Exemplary Service to Public Works to Rep. Peter DeFazio (right). Standing between them is Rick Olson, Oregon Chapter President. (Photo by Keren Ceballos)

Willdan Administrative Office: 800/424-9144 www.willdan.comMuniFinancial: 800/755-MUNI (6864) www.muni.com

Arroyo Geotechnical: 714/634-3318 www.arroyogeotechnical.comAmerican Homeland Solutions: 877/818-5621 www.americanhomelandsolutions.com

Engineering, Planning, Code Enforcement, Landscape Architecture, Building andSafety, Construction Management, Financial and Economic Consulting, GeotechnicalEngineering, Material Testing and Inspection, Homeland Security and Public Safety.

Distinctive Strengths.United Goals.Distinctive Strengths.United Goals.


’m writing this message on Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m. from the Board Room of APWA’s national headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., surrounded by a dedicated group of APWA volunteer leaders, their Board Liaison, Staff Liai-

son, and a great Facilitator. They are members of the Body of Knowledge Task Force and they spent a full day yesterday, and will spend all day today, sorting through the seemingly endless process of drafting a Body of Knowledge that en-compasses all that embodies the industry of public works.

In several adjoining rooms yesterday and the day before, twenty stormwater practitioners from APWA and EPA de-voted sixteen grueling hours to writing questions needed to develop the Stormwater Manager Certification Exam which will be processed through all the formal psychometrics and prepared to be tested with the first group of candidates in January 2009.

Two weeks from yesterday, members of the Sustainability Task Force will spend a concentrated period of time setting a program for development of APWA’s plans for addressing sustainability issues for the future.

Next Friday morning the Kansas City Metro Chapter’s Lead-ership and Management Committee will meet for their monthly meeting and will hear Bill Sterling, Greeley, Colo., make a presentation entitled “How to be an Employee: Max-imizing your Potential.”

And next Friday and Saturday, the members of the nation-al Leadership and Management Committee will travel to Kansas City to have their annual two-day planning meet-ing where they will begin to craft their business plan for the coming year, set a direction for their future activities, and determine how they can best offer education, training, publications, and leadership and management both for the membership and to the Association.

Somewhere in the United States or Canada, every Tuesday night, a public works director, city or county engineer, or consulting engineer will stand before a city council or coun-ty commission and make a presentation about a new project to benefit the community.

Each of the participants in these functions is exercising various leadership and management skills. But you already suspected that. And each of you involved in the daily op-erations of your own job are doing that every day as well. My point is: whether you think of yourself as a leader or a manager, you are!

The role of the Leadership and Management Committee is to provide a wide range of topics, suggestions, ideas and ref-erences to help you and members of your organization pro-vide training and education to the members of your staff. They continue to search for meaningful ways to do so.

The new series of articles coming from the committee will be titled “Cleaning up the Kitchen.” In case you haven’t fol-lowed the four previous series, “The Baker’s Dozen,” “The Baker’s Menu,” “The Baker’s Potluck” and “Recipes for Suc-cess,” you’ll see why they have chosen the title! They are tying up all the loose “kitchen” ends. If you’ve missed any of these, they are still available online at www.apwa.net under the Reporter.

Don’t forget to join the Online Mentoring Calls on the fourth Thursday afternoon of January, February, April and May, as well. Each call focuses on a specific leadership or manage-ment issue and provides a panel discussion of the topic and then allows you to submit your questions for immediate re-sponse. Get a group of your staff members together to listen to the discussion and then share specific issues within your own agency and how you might use the information to re-solve or work through them. The calls are FREE and nothing beats that. You can find the topic for each call and the Dial-In information on the APWA web page at www.apwa.net.

If there are topics or issues you would like to have reviewed or discussed, please send your suggestions to any of these committee members:

• John Ostrowski, Vancouver, Wash., Chair• Richard Coates, Fulton Co., Ga.• Vanessa Conrad, San Francisco, Calif.• George Haines, Gillette, Wyo.• Bill Sterling, Greeley, Colo.• Gary Strack, Kansas City, Mo.• Diane Linderman, At-Large Director, Richmond, Va.

You can find their contact information on the Technical Committee page at www.apwa.net/About/TechSvcs/Leader-ship/index.asp?mode=roster.

Regardless of whether you think you are a leader or a man-ager, rest assured, you are! An unknown author summed it up pretty well when he said, “A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not.” Stop and think about the role model you are setting. Are you doing all you can to be the best you can? Go for it!

Ann Daniels can be reached at (816) 595-5223 or [email protected].

“Who? Me? I’m not a leader!”

Ann DanielsDirector of CredentialingAmerican Public Works AssociationKansas City, Missouri


“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion and knowledge.” – Plato

The Leadership and Management Committee has completed four series of articles on leadership/management competen-cies: “The Baker’s Dozen,” “The Baker’s Menu,” “The Baker’s Potluck” and “Recipes for Success.” The articles for “The Baker’s Dozen” and “The Baker’s Menu” were published in a book titled Building on the Basics: Core Competencies for Public Works Managers which is available at the APWA bookstore.

This article will provide a summary of the two most re-cent series of articles: “The Baker’s Potluck” and “Recipes for Success.”

“The Baker’s Potluck” series started with an article written by Sue Hann titled “A Public Works Leader and Manager Needs Oral Presentation Skills,” and was published in the November 2006 issue of the APWA Reporter. Jerry Sein-feld says, “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death.” Yet, in public works, communication is one of the most important skills you need for a successful career. The article provides some practical ideas on how to develop your public speaking skills in a low-risk environment and tips on how to make public speaking fun rather than frightful.

In the November 2006 edition of the Reporter, the series continued with an article by John Ostrowski titled “Coex-isting with the Unions.” Experience teaches us that, in dealing with unions, the following principles might be help-ful. First, management should treat all employees fairly and with respect and as part of a team. Second, be aware that treating people as just described doesn’t mean you’ll be free of unions. No matter how good your relationship is, union representatives have a responsibility to represent their mem-bers. Look for common goals.

“Interviewing for the Right Skills” was the subject in the January 2007 issue. This article, written by Bill Sterling, discussed that the recruitment of new employees is one of the most important tasks a manager will undertake. Meet-ing candidates face to face provides the best opportunity for gathering information about their skills and experience. While an interview is one of the most basic forms of screen-

ing, interviewing can be a complicated and time-consuming process. There are three major items to look for in the inter-view process: hard skills, talent and soft skills. This article stresses the soft skills.

In February 2007, Sue Hann wrote an interesting article on “Performance Evaluations: An Institutionalized In-strument of Torture.” Almost everyone has some experi-ence with performance evaluations, but is that experience dragging down or building up your organization? If perfor-mance evaluations only serve as a means by which to ag-gravate employees and supervisors, then the time is right to take a new look at how to apply this awkward tool in a more useful and positive way.

In the March 2007 issue of the Reporter, George Haines wrote about the subject of your strengths in an article titled “Fo-cus on your Strengths.” In this article, George asks the question that, as a leader in your organization, are you go-ing to spend your time with your best people making them better or spend time trying to fix their weak areas? After all, the reason you hired them is that you saw something in them that you considered strength. Keep investing in that strength and you will see great returns on your investment.

“Leading through Change” was the title of an article by Richard Coates, published in April 2007, in which he il-lustrated ways of meeting the challenges of leading an or-ganization through a major downsizing. It is necessary for the leadership to keep the staff morale from totally bottom-ing out during a time of change. Although downsizing may be on the horizon, a leader must maintain some level of employee loyalty. This article showed how providing addi-tional training and leadership opportunities can go a long way to maintaining morale.

The second half of “The Baker’s Potluck” series began with an article by George Haines titled “A Leader’s Legacy.” This article, published in May 2007, discussed that legacy isn’t about you and what you’ve accomplished. What are you doing to cultivate successors? There are four aspects of shaping a legitimate leadership legacy: character, choices, conduct and consequences. Your character, choices and con-duct are the seeds you sow. Consequences are the results and a reflection of the other three.

A “Wrap”-up of the Leadership Competencies Series…as reported from the kitchens of the Leadership and Management CommitteeWilliam A. Sterling, P.E.Director of Public Works (Ret.)City of Greeley, ColoradoMember, APWA Leadership and Management Committee


“Determining your Level of Service” was an interest-ing article by Bill Sterling. This article was included in the June 2007 issue of the Reporter and discussed the difference between what you had to do and what you could do. Just doing the best you can is no longer acceptable. The best public agencies commit to delivering at a certain level and prove that they can deliver. Establishing service levels is the key to accomplishing this.

Following up, in the July 2007 issue was an article by Jim Proce titled “Connecting with your Community.” This article contained “tidbits” on how you can get your community more involved in your public works activities. We all know public works folks typically haven’t been good about marketing and self-promotion; many of us seem to fear it and avoid it. In today’s public works departments, you have to “connect with your community” and you have to do it all and more, with less! The ar-ticle provides some innovative ways to make that very important connection with your community.

A great article on “Mentoring for the Future” was the subject of an ar-ticle written by Gary Strack and pub-lished in the August 2007 Reporter. This article is about preparing those who will follow us in leadership roles for the future of our profession. It discuss-es the desirable qualities of a mentor and some aspects of a mentor/protégé relationship to get the most out of the relationship. The timing of starting a mentoring relationship is considered as well as why this is so important for the future.

We all have problems to solve, so the next article, included in the September 2007 issue of the Reporter, gave us some hints on problem solving. The article on “Creative Problem Solving,” written by John Ostrowski, discusses that public works is all about moti-vating people and solving problems. If we solve our toughest problems, we’ve done half the job. Most creativ-ity theory says that we need to find a way to tap into our innate creativity and release it through a technique like brainstorming. Another approach is to tap into the knowledge of your peers using the APWA infoNOW Communi-ties. Something completely different is the system called TRIZ—the theory of

Inventive Problem Solving (the Russian letters make the ac-ronym work). TRIZ is not about compromising, but finding ways that can be used to resolve conflicts.

The subject shifted somewhat in the next article, “Identi-fying the Skills Needed for Crew Leaders and First Line Supervisors,” written by Sue Hann and published in the October 2007 issue of the Reporter. So you worked hard and earned that promotion to supervisor—what’s in store for you now and what skills do you need to succeed? The

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article is in a question-and-answer format that addresses ev-erything you always wanted to know about being a supervi-sor but were afraid to ask.

The final article in “The Baker’s Potluck” series, “Creative Recruitment,” appeared in the November 2007 issue of the Reporter. This article, written by George Haines, discussed that creative recruitment is not just about innovative ways to get out your message and attract people you otherwise might not reach. It’s also about making sure that, once you generate interest, you take the proper steps to hire the right people. When you hire the right people, not only do you solve your short-term issues of filling a position, you are cre-ating the foundation for developing and retaining the future of your organization.

That’s a wrap on the third series, “The Baker’s Potluck.” It is hoped that the above summary will give you some insight into the series. If you want to learn more about the series, contact the staff at www.apwa.net. They will be happy to help you find more sources on information about these topics.

“Your imagination has much to do with your life…It is for you to de-cide how you want your imagination to serve you.” – Philip Conley

The fourth series, entitled “Recipes for Success,” began in the December 2007 issue of the Reporter with an article, “Recipes for Success,” written by Gary Strack introduc-ing this new series of articles. As a bonus, an “edible” recipe would be included with each article. These tried and true recipes are as reliable as the authors and subjects of the fu-ture articles.

“A Career in Public Works: Unlimited Potential” is the title of an article written by Sue Hann and published in the January 2008 issue of the Reporter. The public works profession is known for its challenges and opportunities. It is a place where you can truly make a difference in your community from anywhere in the organizational chart. So, figure out where you want to be and design a path to get there!

The next month’s article, “No Good Deed Goes Unpun-ished,” was written by John Lisenko. The theme of this ar-ticle, appearing in the February 2008 issue of the Reporter, is that “doing the right thing” is not always easy. It is more about what we ought to do in situations where we are pre-sented with alternative courses of actions. These situations are called ethical dilemmas. Public works practitioners en-counter ethical dilemmas on a daily basis. After describing the nature of these dilemmas and giving situational exam-ples, the author provides a framework for resolving them.

The series shifted to discussions on mentoring and role models in the next three issues, beginning with an article titled “Being a Role Model.” Written by George Haines and appearing in the March 2008 issue of the Reporter, this article began the discussion of mentoring. You can always learn something from someone else. Watch the behavior of other people. Find good examples and bad examples. There

is no secret to becoming a role model at home, at work and in your community. It’s about character.

The next issue of the Reporter, the April 2008 issue, included an article by Bill Sterling, entitled “Mentoring: What it is and What it’s Not.” The article discusses the anticipated retirement of a whole generation which means a wave of po-sitions will become vacant. The Boomers are being replaced by the X-ers. The new workers are not in the position to bring much experience to your organization. How will they learn from the mistakes and successes of those they are re-placing? How will they capture the institutional knowledge of the organization?

The last article on mentoring, “How to get a Mentor,” was printed in the May 2008 issue and was written by Gary Strack. In this article he discussed how to find a mentor. A different approach was taken with this article in that four APWA members were interviewed about their experience with getting mentors and participating in mentoring rela-tionships. Although only one member was involved with a formal mentoring program, each one’s unique experi-ence illustrates how mentoring does not have to be the same for everyone.

Getting back to leadership and management competencies, George Haines wrote an article titled “Listen with Pas-sion!” This article was included in the June 2008 issue of the Reporter. In it, George asks us how well we listen. Listen-ing is half of the communication process. We only absorb about 30% of what we hear. Of all the attributes of great leaders, the one that can make you stand out is the ability to listen. If you put the same passion into listening as you do your work, people will notice. The day you become a good listener is the day you become a good leader.

Wendy Springborn-Pitman wrote an article on emerging leaders titled, “What a Whirlwind Weekend!” In this article, published in the July 2008 issue, Wendy talks about the APWA Emerging Leaders program and the first class of the Academy. Sometimes the only way to learn is to try something new or view things from a different perspective. This program gives you that opportunity. The program fo-cuses on topics outlining how to understand and identify the differences between a manager and a leader; teamwork and consensus building; discussion and debate; how to deal with the media; and what is ethics or what is ethical. You will make lifelong friends and begin establishing a network of people who can help you traverse the obstacles that may come your way.

In the August 2008 issue, an article by Richard Coates dis-cussed the subject of competencies. In his article, “Leader-ship and Management Competencies: Preparing you to Seize Opportunities,” Richard discussed the subject of helping our members get the most out of their 2008 Con-gress experience in New Orleans. As public works profession-als we have to always look for opportunities to continually improve ourselves. This article listed the many workshops


that were available to take at Congress to enhance each of the competencies.

In her article “Setting Career Goals: Managing the Crystal Ball and Influencing your Future,” Sue Hann gives some insight into setting goals to further enhance your career in public works. This article was included in the Sep-tember 2008 issue of the Reporter and takes on the subject of goal-setting in a more personal vein.

In the October 2008 issue, Bill Sterling talks to his good friend, Augie, about his involvement in APWA and what the agency meant to him during his career. The title of the article, interestingly enough, is “What APWA has Meant to Me.” The article’s main theme is that you get out of an organization what you put in. There are so many ways to get involved and contribute to any organization; you just have to take advantage of the opportunities an orga-nization has to offer.

And finally, Sue Hann discusses the crit-ical issue of “Commitment: Are you Invested?” in the November 2008 is-sue of the Reporter. This subject matter was extremely important to Sue, as an incoming APWA Board member and as an outgoing member of the Leader-ship and Management Committee; she “committed” to complete this article. Commitment is sometimes uncomfort-able and painful, but it is a key compo-nent of the foundation on which your reputation and your career are built. As such, managing commitment is an im-portant skill that is essential to a suc-cessful career. If you invest your time and energy into those things about which you are passionate, commitment should be easy.

And there you have it, a quick summary of the 25 articles in the last two series from the kitchens of APWA. It is hoped that the above summary will give you some insights to “The Baker’s Potluck” and the “Recipes for Success” series of articles. The interesting thing about the last series, “Recipes for Success,” is that the committee actually gave the membership real, workable recipes to try out.

“A prudent person profits from personal ex-perience, a wise one from the experience of others.” – Dr. Joseph Collins

This brief summary was prepared with the help of all of the “Chefs” of the Leadership and Management Committee. They either wrote the articles or provided a summary of the articles.

William A. Sterling, P.E., is a member and past Chair of the Leadership and Management Committee and a recipient of the APWA “Top Ten” Award, and can be reached at (970) 356-1159 or [email protected].


Cleaning up the Kitchen

William A. Sterling, P.E.Director of Public Works (Ret.)City of Greeley, ColoradoMember, APWA Leadership and Management Committee

“To make no mistake is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes, the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.” – Plutarch

Last month’s APWA Reporter concluded the series of articles entitled “Recipes for Success.” This latest series of articles centered on a variety of leadership and management top-ics. (See the related article in this issue that summarizes the “Baker’s Potluck” and the “Recipes for Success” series.) All in all, the Leadership and Management Committee completed four series: “The Baker’s Menu,” “The Baker’s Dozen,” “The Baker’s Potluck” and “Recipes for Success.” All of these ar-ticles are available on the Reporter web page (www.apwa.net/Publications/Reporter). In addition, the first two series, “The Baker’s Menu” and “The Baker’s Dozen,” are available in a single book from APWA (Building on the Basics: Core Compe-tencies for Public Works Managers).

In keeping with the food theme, the committee will be pre-senting the fifth and final series of articles on competencies beginning next month, entitled “Cleaning up the Kitchen” (you know how messy the kitchen was left by the chefs “cooking” up the last articles). This new series of articles will again focus on some of the previous competencies, but will take the form of actual case studies. The “kick-off” article, “Generational Issues,” written by George Haines, will appear in the January 2009 issue of the Reporter. Some of the following articles, authors and their anticipated schedule of printing are:

• “Growing Your Own Employees” by Laura Kroeger (February)

• “Recruiting for Employees” by George Haines (March)

• “Retaining Employees” by Gary Strack (April)• “Working in Teams” by Bill Sterling (May)• “Alternatives to Retirement” by John Ostrowski

(June)

Watch for these listed articles on case studies as well as ad-ditional articles, which will follow, beginning with the July edition of the Reporter.

The importance of participating in APWA will become ap-parent as you read these new articles. APWA is a very valu-able resource as well as an opportunity to network for many

of your public works issues. These articles, actual case stud-ies, will provide you with valuable information and specific networking opportunities. We hope they will help you in advancing your career or help you with some of your current problems. These articles are another example of how APWA is your information source on all types of public works is-sues. The APWA Reporter covers all facets of public works for APWA members including industry news, legislative actions, management issues and emerging technologies.

So why did the committee choose “Cleaning up the Kitch-en” as the title of the next series of articles? Apart from the fact that the committee has chosen a food-related theme in all of our articles, the committee thought we should put some of the competencies to the test and give you some actual situations to which you may be able to relate. While most of the previous articles were written by experienced people in public works and, in most cases, based upon their experiences, we wanted to be able to relate the com-petencies to your real world of public works; hence the case study approach.

You may find this series of articles of benefit to you in a spe-cific situation; if so, you may want to contact the writers of the articles directly to discuss the situation in more detail.

The members of the Leadership and Management Commit-tee are always looking for article topics (and guest writers). In the interest of saving time and effort, however, we sug-gest you submit your topic for consideration prior to com-pleting the article. In addition, if you have a unique (aren’t they all!) insight or experience in public works you want to share, please contact Ann Daniels who will pass them on to the committee. We are all in this field of public works together and our goal is to help people to be better public works administrators. This, in turn, allows us to better serve our citizens.

“When life’s problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate.” – Ann Landers

William A. Sterling, P.E., is a member and past Chair of the Leadership and Management Committee and a recipient of the APWA “Top Ten” Award, and can be reached at (970) 356-1159 or [email protected].

Presenting a new series of articles from the chefs of the Leadership and Management Committee


or more information about these programs or to register online, visit www.apwa.net/Education. Program information will be updated as it becomes available. Questions? Call the Education Department at 1-800-848-APWA.

Winter 2008

Dec. 4 Bridge Maintenance

Dec. 4-5 PSMJ’s Public Works Project Management Bootcamp – Phoenix, AZ

Dec. 11 Sustainability Series #2: Retrofitting Existing Buildings Using Green Design

Dec. 11-12 PSMJ’s Public Works Project Management Bootcamp – New Orleans, LA

Dec. 18 NPDES Good Housekeeping

Dec. 18-19 PSMJ’s Public Works Project Management Bootcamp – San Antonio, TX

Winter/Spring 2009

Jan. 15 Sustainability Series #3: Developing Green Transportation for Smart Growth

Jan. 22 Private Partnerships for Public Needs

Feb. 12 Successful Models for Rural Water

Feb. 19-20 Advanced Construction Inspection Workshop – Tampa Bay Area, FL

Feb. 26 Sustainability Series #4: Low Impact Development and Public Works

Mar 4-6 Public Fleet Management Workshop—Los Angeles, CA

Mar 12 Mobile Technology for Public Works Use

Mar 26 How to Initiate and Implement a Right-of-Way Program

= Click, Listen, & Learn program = Live Workshop= Web-Based Training

Audio/Web Broadcast10-12 p.m. CST

Sustainability Series

#2 Retrofitting Green Design and Standards (12/11/08)#3 Green Transportation and Smart Growth (1/15/09)#4 Low Impact Development for Public Works (2/26/09)

Members: $175 per site • Nonmembers: $225 per site

Register online at www.apwa.net/education or call 1-800-848-2792


Note: The following interview was conducted between Eric Dar-gan, a member of APWA’s national Diversity Committee, and Damon Russell, who was a first-time attendee at the APWA Inter-national Public Works Congress & Exposition in New Orleans.

Eric: Hello, Damon. I am interviewing you on behalf of the American Public Works Association and the Diversity Com-mittee. The focus of this interview is highlighting young professionals and first-time attendees to the National Con-gress. In order for the readers to know you personally, tell us a little about yourself.

Damon: My name is Damon Russell. I am a Project Techni-cian I for the City of Houston, Department of Public Works and Engineering (PWE), Right-of-Way & Fleet Maintenance Division (ROWFM). I have been working for the City of Houston for three years. During this time, I have been privi-leged to work in three different sections within the division. Each individual section performs specialized tasks within the division. The opportunities afforded me have expanded my knowledge base as it relates to the many facets of PWE. The knowledge I have been inundated with has fostered a sense of pride in the work that I perform. I am proud to be a part of the public works professional family; family is the axis upon which my life turns. There is nothing more important than family. I consider my brother, who also works for the City of Houston, my best friend and have been blessed with wonderful children.

My family roots provide me with a strong spiritual founda-tion that stands the test of time and ultimately keeps me grounded. I have been an ordained member of the clergy for 14 years. All of these components are the sum of who I am. Decisions such as starting a family, being active in ministry, and ultimately becoming a public works professional were great decisions.

Eric: How did you enjoy the festive and historic city of New Orleans?

Damon: I have traveled to various parts of this country, yet, in all my travels, I had never gone to New Orleans. Though New Orleans is down the highway from Houston, this was my first visit. I must admit New Orleans was a wonderful place to visit. During my stay, I quickly discovered there was no shortage of things to do or places to satisfy, whatever tastes your palette was craving. I had often heard about the

party town, New Orleans. Not long after arriving in New Or-leans did I learn that the stories I heard were not hyperbole but factual accounts of New Orleans. The famed “French Quarter” and “Bourbon Street” usually dominated those conversations. Upon traversing these areas, I could not help but concur. The same brochure that detailed the party spots also heralded information probably overlooked by most.

Upon closer examination of the brochure, my eyes fell upon Gray Line Tours, a bus company that provided commentat-ed tours of New Orleans. The bus driver and commentator were one and the same. The bus driver was more like a his-torian. He spoke several languages fluently. We stopped at a rest area and my curiosity took over. I asked the driver about the criteria for being a driver and guide of this tour and I was amazed by what I learned. You must be a college graduate having majored in history and/or language. Along with be-ing a college graduate, you must complete a one-year study paid for by the company detailing New Orleans’ history. The tour revealed so much about this historic city.

Eric: Your first meeting at the APWA Congress was the First-Timers Meeting. How was it?

Damon: I was a little apprehensive about going to the First-Timers Meeting because first-timers are more often treated like outsiders than interested members. To my surprise I was not only treated like an interested member but also engaged as a welcomed participant. The First-Timers Meeting at the APWA International Congress of 2008 set a new precedent. We were greeted at the door by members of the Diversity Committee. During the breakfast, we were introduced to various board members of APWA. Have I mentioned that the breakfast was delicious? I met public works professionals from around the world. I had the pleasure of sitting with a group of men from Australia. We talked about public works, sports, and a host of topics discussed without reservation.

Eric: Did you meet anyone new at the Congress?

Damon: Eric, the better question is, “How could you not meet someone new at the Congress?” I met scores of peo-ple during the sessions, while transitioning from session to session, on the exhibit hall floor, walking down the street, and wherever one might find themselves. Congress partici-pants were all over the place. After the daily sessions were over, there were informal meet and greet sessions held in

First impressions of a first-timer in New OrleansAn interview between Eric Dargan and Damon RussellEric DarganDeputy DirectorPublic Works and EngineeringCity of Houston, TexasMember, APWA Diversity Committee


various venues around downtown New Orleans. These meet and greets were designed for entertainment and network-ing with other APWA members from around the country. I met a mother and her two daughters from California; all of them were municipal employees and had been for years. They shared with me the long history of public service in their family. This trio was just the beginning. I met a delega-tion that same night from Detroit, Michigan; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York, Florida, Wisconsin, and a host of other states. As we huddled in small- to medium-sized groups, we talked about family, work, and an array of other subjects throughout the evening.

As insightful and entertaining as these meet and greets were, they paled in comparison to the woman I met at the Progres-sive Women in Public Works Breakfast held Monday morn-ing: Doris Voitier, Superintendent of Schools for St. Bernard Parish. Ms. Voitier, her colleagues and some students were trapped by floodwaters in a school in the St. Bernard Parish. She shared an emotional story of survival in the midst of overwhelming odds. Her story is the epitome of the strength contained within one’s self that only dire straits can bring to fruition.

Eric: What was your first reaction to the exhibit hall?

Damon: “Wow” was my first response! The exhibit hall was massive. The vendors on the exhibit floor ran the gamut from alert systems for vehicles to viewing equipment and everything in between. The exhibit floor ignited the imagi-nation. As a public works professional whatever one might need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your or-ganization was on that exhibit floor.

Eric: How was the Field Employees Education and Develop-ment (FEED) presentation that you participated in received by the audience?

Damon: Whatever your discipline is, if there is an idea in-troduced that is unprecedented the presenter wonders how it will be received. For us it was no different. Although un-certainty of reception may loom large, confidence in the idea forces one to forge ahead no matter what the obstacle. We encountered a huge obstacle during and after the pre-sentation; that obstacle was time. If the number of ques-tions asked and the time taken to answer during and after the session is any indication of success, I would suffice it to say that the reception was outstanding. Public works entities from around the country were interested in the brand new concept. The presentation as well as the noted success of the program sparked an interest to both those who may have been skeptical and/or cynical of the session’s title.

Eric: What information did you attain that will benefit the City of Houston?

Damon: On Monday morning at the General Session the presentation was entitled “The Influencer: The Power to Change Anything.” The title speaks for itself. When I

emerged from that ballroom I was all the more determined to ensure ROWFM meets the goals you had set for the divi-sion. Affecting any change hinges on an individual’s ability to lead no matter the vantage point from which you lead. “Empowered Leadership through Personal Vision” armed me with communication, performance and organizational tools to enhance this organization as we strive to be the best PWE division in the country. The principles disseminated in this session empowered me as an individual for public service within my purview of influence.

The next session expanded my sphere of understanding all the more. “The Role of Public Works in Evacuation” was in-teresting for me because I had no idea we (PWE) played a role in evacuation. I soon discovered that traffic light op-eration, street closures, etc. are performed in large part by public works men and women. The sacrifice made to per-form their duties as others seek to evade pending danger so-lidifies them as the type of leaders depicted in the following session. “Breakthrough Leadership” added more leadership information on top of the “Empowered Leadership” session. Though leadership was the focus it dealt more with servant leadership, commitment, sacrifice, etc. The final session em-bodied servant leadership, commitment, and sacrifices from the individual entities and provided intersecting informa-tion to make all efforts congruent.

Eric: Damon, I am glad that you enjoyed your very first APWA National Congress. Hopefully, the experience and training you received will be beneficial to you personally and professionally. Thank you for conducting this interview with me and for being an integral part of the Department of Public Works and Engineering and serving the great citizens of Houston, Texas.

Eric Dargan can be reached at (713) 837-7502 or [email protected]; Damon Russell can be reached at (713) 837-0256 or [email protected].

Eric Dargan addresses the crowd at the First-Timers Meeting during the 2008 Congress in New Orleans.


Risk-taking: Don’t be disappointed by the things you did not doJimmy B. Foster, P.E.Senior Project ManagerHNTB Corporation, Plano, TexasAPWA Director of Region VII

he September 6, 1999 issue of Time had an article about the increasing popularity of taking risks. Is this wise or unwise? If you were in Atlanta for the 2004 APWA Congress, you may recall the talk by Dr. Glenn

Singleman and his wife, Heather Swan, both extreme sports enthusiasts from Australia. My wife and I spent some time with them in Atlanta. Now some of you have wondered at times, “What possesses a person to want to push the enve-lope like that?” We may never fully understand a person who likes to live on the edge. Some of you may be surprised to learn that, for some of us, the best years of our lives have been lived on the edge.

Kidnapped?Having just landed at the airport in Peshawar, Pakistan, I was comforted by its cleanliness and by the dominant green used in the color motif of the airport’s interior. I had arrived in Peshawar to visually document the purchase and ship-ment of $100,000 worth of food needed in Kabul, Afghani-stan, which was under siege by several warlords in the early 1990s. Those remaining in Kabul—mostly women, young children, older men, and the workers in relief agencies—had been experiencing a shortage of food for many weeks.

Carrying my small piece of luggage in my left hand, I noted a small sign being held by a man whom I ultimately came to know as my driver. Upon arrival at his vehicle—a new, 4-wheel-drive Toyota in the parking lot—I was greeted by my host, an influential Afghan political leader living in exile in western Pakistan. I climbed into the vehicle, not expect-ing what was to occur next.

The vehicle exited the airport parking lot and pulled onto the main street in Peshawar, a town that might best be de-scribed as similar to an “Old West” town in frontier America. Everyone had a weapon—an AK-47, a handgun, ammuni-tion belts, knives, and even more. Suddenly, the back doors of the Toyota flew open, and in hopped a turbaned man dressed in the grays and browns so characteristic of this area. A Mujahadeen! Alarmingly, however, he was also armed with an AK-47, several ammunition belts, and who knows what else. My first thought? I’m being kidnapped!

Slightly more than a year earlier, I had been involved in an-other kidnapping, but in that one, I had been on the negoti-ating end. My organization had arranged for two volunteers to enter Afghanistan to help improve their livestock. After a

few weeks, we received word that they were being held for ransom by one of the warlords near Khandahar, Afghani-stan. I served on the crisis management team that worked the next six months for their release. One was released after three months, and the other after six months.

This intense period of time was still on my mind as the Toy-ota continued westward toward the Afghanistan border. No words were being spoken. The vehicle just continued, quite deliberately and quickly, toward the Afghanistan border. My fears of being kidnapped were becoming more intense with each passing kilometer. However, after several fearful min-utes, a different picture emerged before me—a convoy of eighteen large trucks accompanied by seventy-three, fully-armed military vehicles. This was the food to be shipped into Kabul. This man was not my kidnapper but my body-guard! After a considerable time of inspection and protocol, I watched the convoy snake its way past the invisible Paki-stan/Afghanistan border in route to Kabul, approximately 200 kilometers away.

Jimmy Foster in the medieval city of Suakin, south of Port Sudan


Without a Passport, One is a Non-personMy passport had just been taken by the Sudanese gov-ernment. I was in Port Sudan to talk with the Sudanese government about the construction of hafirs (water reten-tion facilities). Prior to my arrival in the Sudan I had been threatened with strip search. During the entire 10-day stay the government knew exactly where we were. At this time, Osama bin Laden had his training camps in the Sudan. Risky? Yes! But the result was that we were able to get the design started for the construction of hafirs for refugees in southeastern Sudan.

Watching F-16s Strafe the HillsideOn another occasion I found myself in northern Iraq. I was there to visit with the local valley authority to assess the needs of his people concerning water, agriculture and live-stock. After lunch we sat on the porch and listened for the whine of jet engines high in the clouds. That whine was followed by the vision of F-16s diving out of the clouds and strafing a neighboring hillside, about ten kilometers distant, with machine gun fire. The jet would then pull up and release heat shields to protect itself from ground-to-air missiles. The Turkish F-16s were in battle with the PKK, a Kurdish group that felt that independence could only be achieved by militaristic means. After approximately two hours, the valley commander with whom I was visiting told us we should leave. The commander of the neighbor-ing valley had been killed in battle, and it would not be safe for us to remain in his compound. The scene going down the mountain was the same as going up. We passed hun-dreds of Peshmerga. Off in the distance we saw the dust of a fully-armed convoy bringing the commander’s body for the funeral and burial. The result of this experience? Wells were drilled in northern Iraq, and the people received help with their livestock and agriculture.

Life is a process in which we are continually searching for meaning. But, in that process of searching for meaning, I have discovered that risk is involved.

When have you been at your peak performance? Is it when you are relaxed, when there are no pressures, when there are no demands? I doubt it. Is the Super Bowl just another game? Could the players just take it or leave it? In fact, one player in a game several years ago even participated against his doctor’s orders. Did any of the players decide to stay home and watch it on TV? No, they thrived on the chal-lenge, the excitement, the competition. And so should we.

I’ve come to eagerly anticipate these occasions—these occa-sions of adrenalin rush, of living on the thin edge of disaster, of being out of my comfort zone. Whether it is teaching a class, making a presentation to the City Council, or prepar-ing this article, I’m on the thin edge of disaster. I’ve gone to war zones, places of civil unrest, places where Americans were hated, places where life was basic and simple and poten-tially deadly. I’ve visited with government officials in China, Vietnam, the Sudan, India, Iraq, and numerous other coun-tries. I’ve participated in meetings at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, where we discussed humanitarian aid. When I was in the refugee camps in Tanzania, across the border from Rwanda, I was on the thin edge of disaster.

You’re sitting there saying, “That’s not the Jim Foster I know. The one I know is quiet, reserved, an introvert.” And you will be correct. That was the Jim Foster at the age of 25 or 35. He’s still like that, yet he is eager to search for that challenge, that excitement, that competition.

This article is about taking risk—intelligent risk, but risk nonetheless.

Get Out of Your Comfort ZoneIn getting out of my comfort zone, I have traveled to 57 coun-tries. I’ve been attacked by African killer bees, from which I received more than 200 stings. I’ve conducted crisis man-agement workshops in South Africa—prior to the election of Nelson Mandela as President. At that time South Africa was the most unsafe country on the face of the earth. While liv-ing in Burkina Faso in the 1980s, I lived through two coups d’état that resulted in curfews lasting for months.

Well-drilling equipment in northern Iraq

Foster with Rwandan refugees crossing into Tanzania


Does it take luck to be successful? Virgil, the greatest of the Roman poets, said “No.” Luck has nothing to do with suc-cess at all. Virgil wrote 2,000 years ago, “Fortune sides with him who dares.” It’s a clever way of saying that good fortune doesn’t come to us; we go to it by taking risks. Life is all about taking risks. And we willingly take chances every day. Whether you drive, take public transportation, or walk to work, you are risking getting into an accident. Every time you go to sleep, you risk not waking up! But you go ahead and do it anyway.

Now, wherever you are on the risk-taking scale, the truth is that risk is simply a part of life. Try as you might to stay “comfortable,” sometimes life simply forces you out of your comfort zone. Larry Laudan, a philosopher of science, has spent the last decade studying risk management. He sum-marizes literature on risk management in nineteen princi-ples. The first principle is the simplest: Everything is risky. If you’re looking for absolute safety, you chose the wrong spe-cies. You can stay home in bed (to avoid risk)—but that may make you one of the half-million Americans who require emergency room treatment each year for injuries sustained while falling out of bed. You can cover your windows—but that may make you one of the ten people a year who ac-cidentally hang themselves on the cords of their Venetian blinds. You can hide your money in a mattress—but that

may make you one of tens of thousands of the people who go to the emergency room each year because of wounds caused by handling money—everything from paper cuts (for those at my income level) to hernias (for the wealthy).

Try as we might, we cannot eliminate risk from life. Life is a risk.

The ParaboleusethaiThere is a Greek word for “risky”—“paraboleusethai” (pa-rab-o-leu-se-thai), a gambler’s term that means to stake every-thing on the turn of the dice.

In the days of the early church there was a group of men and women called the “parabolani” (pa-rab-o-lan-i), the gam-blers. Now this wasn’t a group of people that got together on Mondays to play dominoes for money. No, it was their aim and object to visit the prisoners and the sick, especially those who were ill with dangerous and infectious diseases.

In AD 252, a plague broke out in Carthage, a city under Greek rule at the time. The people of that city threw the dead bodies outside of the walls and ended up fleeing the city in terror leaving the sick and the dying to perish. Cypri-an, the main church leader of that area, gathered his people together. They buried the dead and nursed the sick back to health...they saved the whole city because they were willing to take a risk.

The public works profession needs the parabolani, the gam-blers, the risk-takers. Now, you may never have reason to visit someone with an infectious disease or visit a political prisoner, but you will face risky situations.

And facing risky situations causes fear, and fear, my friends, is a formidable foe in any profession.

What separates achievers from ordinary folks is their will-ingness to take optional as well as necessary risks. In 1979, I was given the opportunity to travel to Indonesia. Up to that time, the most distant place I had traveled had been to Juárez, Mexico, and the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. I had been City Engineer in Grand Prairie, Texas, and was, at that time, a self-employed consulting engineer. There seemed to be a promising career before me. I was not a risk-taker. I was quite satisfied being on the drafting board designing public works improvements or talking with my fellow engineers.

Yet, in Indonesia I found that I enjoyed the cross-cultural experiences, the challenge of a foreign language, and the complexities of a thought process so different from my own. That served as the catalyst for me to begin a career in hu-manitarian aid—first in West Africa and then throughout the world.

Have you had similar opportunities but rejected them? For example, a new job? Did you ask yourself the question:

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What if I don’t like it? What if I don’t like my new boss? Can I really handle the new responsibilities? What happens then? I think I had better stay where I am.

Or have you had the opportunity to offer a new service, to implement a new process, but the obstacles seemed to be too many and too overpowering? You know that the old way doesn’t work well anymore, but it does work. So, why change it?

Security can never depend on outside things and circum-stances. It only comes from within. Trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s tools will not give you any secu-rity. Industry can pass you by. Turtles can’t advance without sticking their necks out, and neither can we.

Do you remember the old Bob Newhart show—the one where he played the owner of an inn in New England? On that show there were three brothers, Larry, Daryl, and his other brother Daryl. In one episode Larry said, “Life is like a sled dog team. Unless you’re the lead dog the scenery never changes.” How long has it been since your scenery changed?

In order to be the lead dog, we have to grow, we have to leave “our comfort zone.” We hate changes. We dislike breaking

our routine. We detest trying something new because if we’re not used to doing it, we’re uncomfortable. But if we’re always doing the same thing, how can we grow? Has your organization done the same thing, the same way for the past 20 years? We are meant to grow, meant to experience the unlimited adventures offered by life. So, let’s practice being the lead dog, leaving behind our present comfort level. Let’s keep stretching by regularly taking risks. Let’s strive to be the lead dog. There will be naysayers:

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near future, in spite of many rumors to that effect.” – Source: Harpers Weekly, August 2, 1902, p. 1046

“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” – Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in Gone With the Wind

“Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” – William Thom-son, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899


“With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.” – Business Week, August 2, 1968

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” – Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre

“There will never be a bigger plane built.” – a Boeing engi-neer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin-engine plane that held ten people

Each day gives you 86,400 seconds of life. How you use them is up to you. Why not use them to take risks and ex-perience the adventure of life, sometimes frightening, but always exhilarating? Helen Keller said, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a dar-ing adventure or nothing at all.”

Mark Twain said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the anchor lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Conclusion: The fact is you can’t avoid risk! It’s inherent in life! In fact, taking risks is the only way to live. Otherwise, we become like the guy in this poem:

There was a very cautious man who never laughed or played.

He never risked, he never tried, he never sang or prayed.

And when one day he passed away, his insur-ance was denied,

They claimed that since he’d never lived, he’d never really died!

Public Works Professionals Take RisksMy challenge to you: Be a public works professional who takes risks.Is there a new process that should be tried? Do it!Is there a new service that needs to be offered? Do it!Is there a design that begs to be changed? Do it!Is there a public works professional in you who yearns to make a difference? Do it!Is there a meaning in life that you have not yet found? Quite likely, to find it, you will need to take risk. Fortune sides with cities, city employees, consulting engineering firms, and vendors who dare—who take risk.

Several years ago, my wife and I went to see the movie Hotel Rwanda. At the end of that movie, the refugees from “Ho-tel Rwanda” (Hotel des Milles Collines) had found safety in the company of the rebels. They were getting ready to cross

the border into Tanzania where refugee camps have been set up. I was in those camps in 1994. Approximately one million people were massacred in Rwanda in 1994. Virtually nothing was done by the Western world. Very few people were willing to take the risk. Recall the words of Mark Twain: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” By taking risk, you can change the world. By taking risk, you can change your profession.

I received this quote from a friend the other day. “Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and scream-ing ‘WOO HOO what a ride! I’ve made a difference!’”

Don’t be disappointed by the things you did not do.

Jimmy B. Foster, P.E., gave a presentation on this topic at the APWA Congress in New Orleans. The Director of Region VII, Jimmy is a former member of the national Diversity, Finance, Government Affairs and International Affairs Committees. He can be reached at (972) 661-5626 or [email protected].

Foster in Rwandan refugee camp

Rwandans crossing the river into Tanzania

March10-122009

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e believe these truths to be self-evident: That we need help from Washington to build local public works. That unfunded mandates are killing us. That the nation’s infrastructure is crumbling.

We also believe a lot of other things and take them for grant-ed as fact. This is an article about Public Works Sacred Cows and some of what I’ve listed so far can be called that. Every-one knows that a sacred cow is a belief or bias that is held by a large group and which belief or bias is never contested.

I’m not ready to declare anything a sacred cow but I am willing to use the term in this article to catch your atten-tion. I am also ready to examine some of our basic assump-tions to see if they are valid or if they’ve graduated to sa-cred cow status.

The first of these is the notion that we all need help from Washington to build America. This implies that cities are unsustainable. It implies that the public works needed to keep commerce and culture humming can’t be afforded by our local communities. If that’s the case, why did we build them in the first place?

Every city in America arose because it was economically vi-able. As our cities grew they either continued to prosper or conditions around them changed and they fell into disrepair. Or local leaders chose to invest in things other than public works. Some cities grew so large as to be unmanageable. I think it was Aristotle who contended that a city beyond a population of 100,000 was ungovernable. Improvements in technology may have allowed for a larger population but we’d only be guessing (as was Aristotle) as to what the right-sized city should be. All of this argues that medium-sized cities have the best chance to be self-sustaining. But what about those little cities and those mega-cities? Don’t they need help from the federal government to build the projects beyond their local capabilities?

I keep referring to cities because it’s a logical label for an urban area. Urbanized counties are an interesting phenom-enon but they’re essentially cities governed by a board that also governs the surrounding rural area.

Let’s look at what’s been happening over the years. Water and sewer projects used to get a lot more federal and state funding than they do today. A mere 10% local share was not

unusual. Now federal water and sewer funding has dimin-ished to a mere shadow of its former self. A long time ago it was decided that local utilities could bear the responsibility for these projects. So utility rates went up and federal par-ticipation went down. Federal requirements didn’t go away but more about that later.

Federal highway funding used to result in donor states con-tributing more in federal gas tax than they got back in proj-ects. Over the years, that formula has been revised so that each state gets something close to what it contributed or eventually will get to that point. I have no idea why some-one isn’t shouting from the rooftops that if we’re getting the same amount back that we sent to Washington in the first place, why don’t we just keep the money at home and not send it to Washington at all?

So, does the federal government have a legitimate role in lo-cal public works? I know I’d be happy to receive any amount of federal money if it came with no strings attached.

That brings us to candidate number two for the title of sa-cred cow. The idea that unfunded mandates are killing us is not new but is seldom examined.

Cities and counties know what it’s like to be at bottom of the governmental funding food chain. (Actually the poor citizen who pays taxes to cities, counties, states and the fed-eral government is at the very bottom.) Cities and counties can only do what the state and federal governments allow them to do. They also have to do what the state and federal governments tell them to do whether money comes with the mandate or not. But not all mandates are created equal. Some are just codified statements of what we should have been doing anyway. Those mandates shouldn’t have had to be mandates in the first place. The other kind of mandate is the one in which a state or federal standard is established and local governments have to conform to that standard at their own cost. Water quality standards are a good example of how confusing this can be. Federal turbidity standards can cause large water utilities with remote open reservoirs to invest in expensive treatment plants when no local health problems or concerns have been raised about the quality of the drinking water. Are the locals being shortsighted or are the feds being paternalistic? The usual answer isn’t arrived at through philosophical discussion, however. What usually

Public Works Sacred Cows

John OstrowskiManagement ConsultantJOMCVancouver, WashingtonChair, APWA Leadership and Management Committee


happens is a series of negotiations with local utilities to first delay implementation of the standard and then they lobby for federal funds through some sort of set-aside project to make the cost of unnecessary treatment more palatable.

Then there’s the poor little city with the $50,000 annual general fund budget that also happens to run a water utility. The water utility might have an annual budget of $100,000 or more but neither the general fund nor the utility could be considered flush with cash. If that city is required to build a multi-million-dollar treatment plant to satisfy a federal or state water quality standard, they suddenly have an annual debt that is more than their existing general and utility bud-gets combined.

So what do they do? First, they try to negotiate a delay in implementation and then they try to get legislative help so that they can get grant funds for their project. What some-times happens to unsophisticated small towns is that they don’t get a grant but they do get a state loan. The loan still has to be paid back but there’s no bond counsel to advise them and the town may have taken on more than they can afford for no noticeable improvement in local quality of life.

So the problem isn’t unfunded mandates. It’s the disconnect in thinking that created the mandate in the first place and then the negotiating that wasted public money to attempt to ameliorate the situation.

That brings us to candidate number three: crumbling infra-structure. Public officials have been saying that the sky is falling (oops, I meant to say infrastructure is crumbling) for a long time. Prestigious associations have given public facili-ties lower and lower grades each time a survey is conducted. Our maintenance backlogs have grown while less and less money is spent on public works. On the other hand, except for the occasional bridge collapse, everything works about as well as it ever did. Maybe better. How can that be? Why do we keep getting D’s if our parents tell us we’re really A stu-dents? Maybe we have higher standards than our custom-ers. Over my career, I’ve watched roadway standards grow in complexity and expense. For the most part these “improve-ments” come from engineers and planners who keep raising the bar. Not every street needs bike paths, street trees and wide sidewalks—unless we say they do. All of this goes on behind the scenes in the multitude of meetings between fed-eral, state and local agencies. Maintenance standards should be a different matter and driven by the laws of economics. If they are, citizens don’t believe they are and are reluctant to fund better maintenance. Unless of course they don’t know better maintenance is being funded. For those utilities that have been willing to raise rates to maintain their facilities properly, maintenance just happens and over the long term, rates can be kept relatively low and facilities can be kept in good condition. This is because utility funding works and

water and sewer utilities have the capability of being prop-erly funded. When they are, those utilities don’t have crum-bling infrastructure.

Streets and highways are a different matter. They’re funded by taxes, not utilities in almost all cases. (There are a few street utilities around.) As long as we’re tied to a gas tax and an antiquated approach to project prioritizing we’ll always have crumbling streets. But even then, citizens don’t always see the need to spend more money to eliminate the crumble. Sometimes this is because they don’t expect their public offi-cials to spend the money wisely and sometimes it is because they really don’t see the need. Congested, rough roads don’t worry retired folks who don’t have to drive during the rush hour unless they have an early doctor’s appointment on the other side of town.

There are a lot more potential sacred cows we could discuss but we’d better stop here. Maybe these aren’t sacred cows af-ter all. Maybe they’re just assumptions we’ve made without much investigation. Maybe more investigation and more analysis and more discussion is warranted.

John Ostrowski chaired the Engineering and Technology Committee in 1996-97. He can be reached at (360) 573-7594 or [email protected].

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et’s set the stage. In today’s workforce, Baby Boomers are the largest generational group. Look at this table:

MaturesBorn 1925-1945

75 Million5% of Workforce

Baby BoomersBorn 1946-1964


Generation XBorn 1965-1984


MillennialsBorn 1985-2005


Some interesting numbers jump out at us from this table. First, the difference in workforce numbers between Baby Boomers and Gen X is staggering, 80 million versus 46 mil-lion. The obvious consequence of this is that when Baby Boomers leave the workforce, there are not enough Gen Xers to take their place. The good news is that the Millen-nials are a large generational group and they will be able to help make up those differences in pure numbers at some point as they join the workforce. However, the oldest people in the Millennial generation are only 23 years old. They still have at least 15 years to go before they are all assimilated into the workforce.

Let’s look at some more facts. AARP figures indicate that in 2007, 28% of the U.S. workforce was over age 50. By 2016, that number will increase to one-third of the workforce, about 33%. At the same time, there is a smaller pool of younger workers available to replace the older workers.

Now, let’s contrast this with the reality of public sector em-ployment. Every study and report I have seen indicates that the percentage of older workers is much higher in the public sector than in the private sector. About 45% of workers are over 45 years of age in the public sector vs. 30% over age 45 in the private sector. This problem is compounded by the reality that younger workers tend to gravitate toward the private sector, so the age gap is widening. When you trans-late those figures into those eligible for retirement, 45% of public sector employees can retire tomorrow versus 25% in the private sector. This is somewhat due to enhanced retire-ment benefits in the public sector. Many public sector retire-ment plans begin their eligibility at age 50. When you work the numbers, it becomes a disadvantage to the employee to

keep on working as many could retire at 75%–90% of their pay with 30 years of service.

Many of you reading this are probably thinking that the per-ception of a Boomer crisis has been muted by the current economic woes of the country. For some that have seen their 401K’s lose significant value that may be true, but Boom-ers have already been doing something that many have not noticed. As an example, I retired from a public employee retirement system. I am age 55. However, I’m not “retired.” What I did was change careers. Many retired public sector employees have found that continuing to work in the public sector became an economic disadvantage. If we wanted to go back to work for government we found there were limits on how much we could earn or how many hours we could work. For those who only want temporary employment or want to do part-time consulting, that’s fine. However, many Baby Boomers want to continue to work, and information from a survey conducted by the U.S. division of Toronto-based Sun Life Financial, Inc., indicates that nearly half of the workers in the United States expect to be working at the traditional retirement age of 67. However, it is not money that is the main motivator. Nearly 83% responded that they would be working either full or part-time to stay mentally engaged. Money, health benefits, love of career, and staying close to people were also important. This isn’t surprising. The Baby Boomer generation is viewed by the other genera-tions as the generation that “Lives to Work.” We identify ourselves by our careers, our jobs and our titles. We’ve made personal sacrifices for our job. We’ve tended to be loyal to our employer. We don’t change jobs as often as the younger generations.

Back to the initial premise of the article. Is there a Boomer crisis? Is it real, or is it perceived? Based on sheer numbers, it is a real crisis that is looming and could have an even larger impact on the public sector. Where perception comes in is whether Boomers will really retire when they become eli-gible. The indicators seem to say no…but. The “but” comes in because they may retire from their public sector jobs and go to work somewhere else. They will do what I did. I “re-ca-reered.” The public sector has an opportunity to jump back in and relook at how they view their aging workforce. I have seen public sector agencies almost invite their older workers to leave. Even when downsizing wasn’t part of the equa-tion, older employees were viewed as dinosaurs. We aren’t as

Boomer crisis: real or perceived?

George HainesDirector of OperationsPeregrine Leadership InstituteGillette, WyomingMember, APWA Leadership and Management Committee


techno-savvy as Generation X or the Millennials. Remember, when Baby Boomers entered the workforce, a “cell phone” was something that a prisoner used to make their one phone call and a “Blackberry” was something you ate. Public sec-tor jobs have evolved over the years, but we haven’t helped employees in those jobs adapt to the changing workplace. Consequently, we look at the Baby Boomers and say they can’t keep up. However, the smart employer looks at them and says, we need to provide training and maybe we need to change job descriptions to reflect the reality of what is needed today. Reorganizing job functions can sometimes solve the problem. Additional training is a must.

Many of you can remember that only a few years ago, you could send out a job announcement and receive 50 job ap-plications for a key position. Now you are lucky to get any qualified applicants and, in many cases, jobs stay vacant much longer than they used to. The public sector has been notoriously slow in recruiting employees. It can take months in some cases. The job seeker doesn’t have the patience any-more to deal with the pace of public sector recruiting. It is a job seekers market. They have the leverage, not the employ-er. As an employer, if you put a price on your turnover and recruiting, you’d be astounded what it costs your organiza-tion in real dollars and productivity for every vacancy you have. So what can we do and what should we do?

AARP has a recognition program called AARP Best Employ-ers for Workers over 50. It is sort of a Best Places to Work for older workers. They look at a number of categories: Re-cruiting, Training, Phased Retirement, Retiree Relations, and Caregiving Programs. It is not surprising to me that there are no government employers on the list. The list is populated by healthcare organizations, financial institutions, some nonprofits, and universities. There is one public school dis-trict on the list, Brevard, Florida at number thirteen. Here is a compilation of some of the winning strategies from the AARP list that I believe can have direct application to the public sector:

Recruiting • Developing specific alumni programs designed to at-

tract mature and retired workers to mentor and train younger employees

• Tapping into community resources, such as senior groups, to recruit for part-time or temporary employ-ment opportunities

• Maintaining a database of retirees who are interested in returning to work on a part-time basis

Training • Computer skills programs, including programs targeted

specifically for workers age 50+

• Refresher courses for mature workers who are reentering the workforce after being away for a number of years

• Assigning mature workers to train others by using them as “expert” teachers and mentors

Phased Retirement• Implementing flexible-work schedules and job-sharing

programs as ways to ease pre-retirees into retirement

• Allowing employees to retire and return to work for spe-cial assignments or projects

• Allowing retirees who return to work to collect their pensions

Retiree Relations• Alumni programs, retiree associations, and retiree news-

letters that keep retirees abreast of current developments concerning their former employers

• Rosters of retirees who can be contacted for special work assignments

• Invitations to ongoing employer activities, such as ben-efit fairs, flu-shot clinics, and awards luncheons

Caregiving Programs• Paid and unpaid time off to care for family members

• Education on eldercare issues, such as workshops and seminars

In my last local government job, I had a seasonal employee who worked in our City parks program. He helps take care of the City planters and sprinkler systems. He is 69 years old and his goal is to work until he turns 70. I could only wish to be in the shape he is in if I make it to 70. The point is that there are workers out there who want to stay engaged and be relevant in today’s workplace. Every seven seconds, a Baby Boomer reaches retirement age. So, what are we going to do about it? We can do what we’ve always done and get what we’ve always gotten, or we can brainstorm ways to leverage this valuable fount of knowledge and experience and con-tinue to use them well into their retirement years. It’s a win-win. Local government needs the workers and continuum of knowledge and Baby Boomers love to work!

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast us.” – William James

“Today we are wasting resources of incalculable value: the accu-mulated knowledge, the mature wisdom, the seasoned experience, the skilled capacities, the productivity of a great and growing number of our people—our senior citizens.” – Senator John F. Kennedy, 1956

George Haines can be reached at (307) 685-1555 or [email protected].


“If you want to be a master, study what the masters have done before you. Learn what they have done—have the guts to do it—and you will become a master too.” – Jos. J Charbonneau

George Haines, in his article, “Succession Planning for Our Next-generation Leaders,” stressed the need for succession planning at all levels in any organization. The article, pub-lished in the September 2006 issue of the APWA Reporter, recommended four steps in the process: Recruit and hire good people; train your people well; develop leaders; and mentor the leaders you develop. George also points out, “If you are just now thinking about succession planning, you are already behind the curve.”

Jennifer L. Adams, in her article, “Succession Planning in Tempe,” described the succession plan adopted by the City of Tempe, Ariz., Department of Public Works. The article, published in the May 2006 issue of the APWA Reporter, de-scribes the seven steps the agency used in their succession planning program: Recognition and Support by Management; Organize; Research; Budget; Define Next Generation; Military Partnerships; and Recruiting for the Future. While this program stressed diversity, the program is adaptable to any situation in succession planning.

This article relates the succession plan the City of Greeley, Colo., used to fill the Director of Public Works vacant posi-tion. The article describes the process our agency set up to mentor an in-house individual for the position after all oth-er “standard” procedures (i.e., succession and recruitment) were not successful.

In organizational development, succession planning is the process of identifying and preparing suitable employees, through mentoring, training and job rotation, to replace key employees. In public works there is a concern that there may be no successor to take over upon the retirement or volunteer separation (or even involuntary separation). It is people, or more aptly, the right people that make things happen or carry on the mission of the agency. A careful and considered plan of action ensures the least possible disrup-tion to the organization. What is likely to happen to the organization when a key employee leaves without succes-sion planning in place? First, there would be either no able successor, or where there is, the successor might be either unprepared to handle the heavy responsibilities placed on them or might not have the ability to manage the organiza-

tion in the way it used to be. It is difficult enough to run an organization with experience and ability; lack of either makes it that much harder.

There are two main models that agencies can use to imple-ment succession planning:

• Short-term or emergency replacement• Long-term planning or managing talent

Unfortunately, the most common model is the short-term planning. The person in the key position leaves; the agency recruits and tries to fill the position. There is usually no op-portunity to pass on the institutional knowledge or train the replacement. Short-term planning is focused on an urgent need caused by the sudden departure of a key individual. If agencies wish to grow leaders from within their existing talent pool and have the time and resources to develop a useful program, the agency can better prepare for the future by using the long-term model.

The Department of Public Works for the City of Greeley used both of the models. Unfortunately the first model, the short-term, didn’t work out very well when the director retired, even though giving three months notice. However, the City was fortunate in that they were able to regroup and use the long-term model in the replacement of its director when the retired director was able to return for a period of time.

The current housing market situation, the shortage of quali-fied candidates, shrinking resources, the shortage of the workforce and the retirement of the “Baby Boomers” all led to the need of a paradigm shift in recruiting for this key po-sition. This paradigm shift played out in the development of an internal succession plan that provided for a concentrated mentorship program. The City of Greeley developed a for-mal mentoring plan that was geared to the development of a qualified individual to succeed in the vacant position. While other agencies may have plans for the orderly replacement of their key staff, Greeley went one step further by identify-ing an individual and mentoring the employee over a period of time, and was able to replace the retired director with little or no disruption of continuity while breathing new life into the organization. Fortunately for the City, the retired director was able to return to the organization to mentor the replacement. You might say that the agency had a second chance to “do the right thing” this time around.

Succession Planning: a case study

William A. Sterling, P.E.Director of Public Works (Ret.)City of Greeley, ColoradoMember, APWA Leadership and Management Committee


The formal mentoring program consisted of five key parts:

• Mission Statement• Work Plan Outline• Implementation Plan• Progress Reviews• Appointment Goal

Each of the above parts contained specific steps. For exam-ple, the Work Plan Outline had five steps: Identification of a suitable in-house candidate; an ori-entation/training schedule; a mentor-ing/coaching plan; an implementation plan; and a transition plan.

• Mission Statement: A mission statement was developed: De-velop a program to identify, train, mentor and prepare an in-house candidate to move into the vacant public works director position.

• Work Plan: The work plan was an outline of the activities used to develop a more detailed imple-mentation program, and included the following items:

The identification of a suitable in-house candidate or candidates. This was accomplished by announce-ments and the review of suitable can-didates. You can post the position or, working through Human Resources (and the City Manager), simply identi-fy a single individual. Things that were considered included: Did the individu-al have basic related qualifications (i.e., current management responsibilities, public/private development involve-ment, an engineering background and a desire to take on this responsibility; and when was this individual available to begin the training, keeping in mind that the candidate had other respon-sibilities within the organization)? In Greeley’s case, a new position, titled Assistant Public Works Director, was developed. We transferred the candi-date and began the mentoring pro-gram within three weeks. Many agen-cies have a position of Assistant Public Works Director; the City of Greeley did not. While many agencies have an As-sistant that can step into the role of Acting or Interim Director, most in-dividuals have not been properly pre-

pared to take the permanent position. The identification process took two weeks.

Some points to look for in the selection process include abil-ity, initiative, responsibility, commitment, flexibility, and being a team player. The selection “has to be for the right reason” and not just to fill the position. Some other things to look for include experience in operations/management, budgeting, people skills, and related education and experi-ence in supervision.

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Orientation and Training. This phase took three months to complete, although the training and mentoring continued after the appointment was made. The length of this phase depends on the experience and availability of the candidate. Our candidate had some background in public works in some areas, but did not presently work in public works and did not have the overall experience or knowledge of most of the responsibilities of the department or in the area of management.

The steps in this phase included the following: Orientation of the individual to the responsibilities of the department and included such components as: Attending all division one-on-one meetings with the director; attending the week-ly staff meeting of the division heads; reviewing all of the di-vision Operations Manuals (which we had for each division as part of our APWA Accreditation program); spending time with each division (a minimum of two days each, the goal of which was to get the individual a hands-on feel of each operating division); reviewing the current operating budget (as an aside, we were in the development of the 2009/2010 budget and prepped this individual to present the budget to the City Council—some face time with the Council!).

The mentor also developed a reading list and training sched-ule for the candidate to accomplish. The reading list includ-ed such titles as:

• Manager’s Question and Answers by Florence M. Stone

• Leader/Manager by William D. Hitt

• The Effective Public Manager by Steven Cohen

• Core Competencies for Public Works Managers by the APWA Leadership/Management Committee

• Developing Operations Manuals by William A. Sterling

• It’s Your Move: Strategic Planning by William A. Sterling

• Survive and Thrive by John Ostrowski

• Everything You Need to be a Public Works Director by John Ostrowski

• Working 101 by Mike Jacobs

• Public Works Administration (APWA)

Many of these publications are available through the APWA Bookstore (www.apwa.net/bookstore).

The orientation phase continued with the protégé “shadow-ing” the director a minimum of four hours each day. At first the director set the weekly goals for the protégé; after two months the goals were jointly set and after three months, the goals were set by the protégé (with oversight by the di-

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rector). Weekly progress reports were completed and shared with the City Manager.

This phase may not take as much concentration if the indi-vidual is already working within the department; knowledge of the department may already be present.

Mentoring/Coaching. This phase took two months. While there was some mentoring taking place during the orientation phase, mentoring began in earnest during this phase. It is during this phase that the mentor shares the in-formation about the organization and how public works re-ally works. This phase provided specific training (i.e., writing skills, speaking skills, personal productivity, management skills). The mentor began to give the protégé more assign-ments and a greater decision-making role. The protégé was asked, “How would you handle this situation?” Many times, the mentor would “gently” coach the protégé about how to go about decision-making or share approach options.

More reading was assigned during this phase. It’s almost like cramming for a Master’s Degree in Public Works, but in a concentrated period of time. More sharing of the men-tor’s knowledge and leadership and management skills took place. The mentor began to share the experience gained in the general field of public works as well as being the former director of the department. It is at this time that the mentor must share everything and the protégé must take this infor-mation in the growth of the individual. Again, specific goals were set for this period.

During this period, two very specific goals were set for the protégé: The protégé had to attend the 2008 APWA Congress in New Orleans (as a first-time attendee) and apply for the Emerging Leader’s Academy (he was subsequently accepted into the program).

As in the Orientation Phase, weekly progress reports were made and shared with the protégé and the City Manager. The purpose of these reports was twofold: 1) to give the pro-tégé a “report card” on progress and any course changes that were needed, and 2) to give the City Manager an assessment of the candidate for the director’s position.

The Implementation Phase was much more detailed than the work plan outline and was a “road map” to success. Space doesn’t allow describing the detail that the implemen-tation plan covered. Your agency may have different circum-stances and needs. A copy of the detailed implementation plan is available upon request and could be used as a guide.

And finally, we get to the Transition Plan. This phase took one month. During this phase the mentor began to reduce the time in the position as the protégé was appointed and began to take charge. Decision-making was turned over to the new director; the mentor was able to reduce the time with the protégé and acted as a “security blanket” for an ad-ditional two months. During that time the outgoing direc-tor worked on special projects part-time and continued to

mentor the new director, after which the “retired” director was able to retire again.

In summary, the agency must identify in-house replace-ments and give them the tools and the opportunity in which to move into key positions. Mentoring is one method to accomplish that goal. Things to keep in mind are: iden-tification is important; patience is critical; the mentor must share everything; the protégé must be engaged; the mentor must recognize when the protégé is ready; and the mentor must be ready to “back off.”

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” – Chinese proverb

William A. Sterling, P.E., is a former Director of Public Works for the City of Greeley, Colorado. A past APWA Top Ten recipient and former member of the Committee on Bylaws and Rules, he can be reached at [email protected].

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Note: This article was written on behalf of the Small Cities/Ru-ral Communities Committee to illustrate the necessity for “hands on” leadership and management in critical situations. While the emergency was unique, the crisis management is common: every department utilizes their training, skills and manpower to provide for the safety and security of their residents.

August 2, 2006 had been a typical summer day in a typical New England town. Situated on New Hampshire’s coast, Rye is a community of about 5,200 that swells by several thou-sand in the summer, and as a tourist community may have several thousand more on the beach on a good day. At the time of this event, Rye’s police department had a total of nine officers, the fire department had eight firefighters and the public works department had a crew of eight. I was the Town’s Police Chief, Emergency Management Director and Acting Town Administrator.

As many people were sitting down for dinner that evening, the storm clouds moved in quickly and it appeared that a fast-moving thunderstorm was imminent. Within minutes the power was off in half the town, 17 utility poles were sev-ered and countless trees were snapped off or blown over.

Due to the sudden nature of this storm, later identified as a “microburst,” there was no time to prepare or even think about how to respond; we simply reacted. We needed to as-sess the damage, determine needs, get help on the way and do it all as safely as possible.

In our situation it was extremely difficult to determine the scope of our problem because felled trees and utility poles prevented any broad assessment. Knowing that at least some trees were down across roads, an immediate call went out to the Town’s Public Works Director. He was having dinner in a neighboring community and would need a path cleared to get home. On the way he would be trying to contact some of his people to get them started into town. With my own chainsaw, I then began cutting my way to his home.

At this point we still had no idea as to the extent of the dam-age. Our first clue came when our two on-duty firefighter/EMT’s contacted the county dispatch center to tell them they were trying to transport a patient but the ambulance was blocked by fallen trees. The ambulance was in a location that was several miles from where we first observed the fall-en trees, so we now knew the damage was fairly widespread.

Calls for assistance went out to our neighboring fire depart-ments. Help was on the way but we didn’t how it would get there. In the meantime, the Public Works Director and I began clearing roads heading in the direction of the ambu-lance. In some places, trees with a diameter of several feet had been toppled in piles of three or four, intertwined with utility poles and wires. Many fell on houses while others fell on cars. One mother and daughter were very lucky not to have been injured when one of these “clumps” fell on their car as they drove. As the trees were cut, a local contractor we had “commandeered” pushed the trees off the road as best he could with a backhoe. We had the public utility company cut the power to the town so that we could work safely.

Our ambulance and its patient were rescued by a mutual aid crew so we could now concentrate on opening the main roads and continue to assess the damage and our needs. It took several hours to clear approximately 100 yards of a main roadway through town and we weren’t even close to being finished; in fact we had just begun. Mutual aid fire crews were beginning to arrive and were staging at our fire station, also the location of our Emergency Operations Cen-ter (EOC). The EOC was now staffed by the fire chief and a police lieutenant. Their function at this point was to main-tain our contact with the outside world and to provide us with information they were receiving. The state EOC was not staffed because this was an isolated event that had not been predicted. We were able to get some assistance from the state in the form of three State Forestry “sawyers.” Once our public works crews started to make it into the DPW ga-rage we were able to split into two crews, with saws and a backhoe. Conditions were now quite difficult on what had become a dark, rainy night, so a member of each crew was designated as the safety officer.

At the fire station there were several dozen firefighters from a number of communities responding to our numerous calls for service. Our police department was also being assisted by surrounding communities. Some of these public safety crews were staged strategically throughout town. In some neighbor-hoods police officers were going door to door checking on residents. At about 11 p.m. the generator at our fire station quit. We determined that it had overheated after running for about five hours. A crew of firefighters was quick to dismantle

When leadership really means “doing it yourself”Alan GouldOperations ManagerMunicipal Resources, Inc.Meredith, New Hampshire


the wooden generator enclosure. After cooling awhile and with a fuse having been replaced, the generator refired.

As midnight approached, our crews were tired and the con-ditions were poor. There had been no accidents and we wanted to keep it that way. We decided to rest the crews until daybreak when we would have a better sense of how to prioritize the work that remained. In the morning we would know more about the extent of the damage from the fire and police crews that remained on duty during the night.

As the rested crews showed up in the morning we broke them into a number of working teams and sent them out to differ-ent areas with each group working inward toward the area that had received the most extensive damage. This would allow utility crews into about a half-mile stretch of road that had dozens of trees down and about 15 utility poles severed. It would take about two weeks to get this section of road cleared by our crews and the utility com-panies. The state sawyers were matched with our town crews so that each crew had a backhoe and a truck. We were able to get a private crane contractor to come in and work with one of our crews on some of the largest trees.

The brush was piling up on the sides of the road and many homeowners were now be-ginning to clear their yards so chipping the debris was our next priority. We contacted chipping companies from out of the im-mediate area because we knew local con-tractors would be busy, expensive given the situation, and could possibly “mingle” the public work with their private work, to the detriment of the town. We located two contractors that had the right equip-ment, gave us reasonable rates and agreed to work every day for as long as we needed them. They were given town maps with our priorities clearly highlighted. Their progress was tracked by the DPW. It turns out these crews worked for the next six weeks chipping everything that was along the roadways. Our transfer station was fill-ing up with stumps, chips and other debris so arrangements were made with our chip hauler to bring in a grinder and haul away the chips.

Eventually services were restored to everyone, but the loss of these hundreds if not thousands of trees will be apparent for decades to come. For those of us charged with responding to the Town’s emergencies, we realize that we need to be largely self-sufficient while continuing to build and maintain good working relationships with our neighboring communities.

Alan Gould can be reached at (603) 279-0352 or [email protected].


ll public works agencies and firms that support pub-lic agencies are entering the competition for staff to fill positions available due to Baby Boom Genera-tion retirements. Population figures indicate that

there are not enough new workers entering the workforce to fill the positions of the Baby Boomers. With the recent trend of the economy, Baby Boomers may have to remain in the workforce longer than they had previously planned to be able to afford to retire. Even if this does happen, most Boomers will not be in the workforce more than 10 addi-tional years and the following generation, Generation X, is much smaller in numbers. So, the question remains, “Who will do your job when you move on or up?”

Without staff, how will you keep servicing your citizens or clients? The easiest way is to retain, train and promote those staff you already have to move into those positions

when the retirees start leaving. These topics have been cov-ered in previous Leadership and Management articles and sessions and will continue to be presented in the future. So, you have promoted staff to fill the positions of the Baby Boomers, but still need to find new staff to fill the “pro-moted staff’s” positions.

Now we enter the extremely competitive market for new talent as it enters the workforce after schooling, whether it be high school, college or graduate school. With a high demand for these individuals, they become selective in what they want to do, how much they are willing to ac-cept in salaries and benefits, and where they want to live. That leaves us, the employer, in the position of selling our agency/firm to them instead of the other way around as it has been for years.

“Plans are only good intentions, unless they immediately degener-ate into hard work.” – Peter Ducker

Aggressive recruitment starts with career fairs, and also in-cludes networking, a competitive salary and benefits pack-age, promotional opportunities, and being responsive and persistent in the chase. Each one of these elements has to be part of the recruitment package. Companies cannot afford to be good in only one or two of these areas. You do not have to be the best in all of these areas, just competitive.

Career Fairs – Virtually all schools have these at some point during the year and your participation is crucial to attracting their students to your agency. Your competition for this new talent is there, so you have to be as well. Ad-ditionally, you will get to see first-hand what your competi-tion is doing to attract the students which allows you to stay current in this process. In addition to wanting to know what opportunities your company has available, students want to know what type of training you plan to provide, what projects they can expect to work on, how they will be evaluated, and how they will be recognized and rewarded. Organizations with programs in place to address these needs will have an edge.

Networking – It continues to amaze us how small this world is when it comes to who knows whom. Get out to meetings and social events, mingle with the crowd and soon you will have many leads on potential employees. One area which we believe is critical to public works staff is being ac-tive in APWA at the local and/or national level. APWA will open many doors for you and allow you to interact with the best people in the world.

Aggressive Recruitment

Janet Jakobe-Gray, Director of Human Resources, Shafer, Kline & Warren, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri; Gary Strack, P.E., Associate, Shafer, Kline & Warren, Inc., Lenexa, Kansas, and member, APWA Leadership and Management Committee

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Competitive Salary and Benefits – This is an exception-ally touchy subject because of the current budget restrictions municipalities are experiencing and the recent economic trends. Without these being competitive, many excellent candidates will go where the money is. To reduce surprises for the decision makers, investigate what others are pro-viding for similar positions at other agencies, before you begin the hunt for new staff. Utilize salary surveys and market studies. Keep in mind that sometimes candidates place more weight on the benefits than they do the base compensation, so be as flexible as possible. We know that some private firms offer signing bonuses and moving ex-penses to new hires which can be difficult for a munici-pality to do. Many younger workers appreciate flexible scheduling and compressed workweeks. Implementing any degree of flexibility in scheduling will differentiate you from the competition.

“Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but who does it for the love of it.” – Henry David Thoreau

Promotional Opportunities – Many potential employ-ees will be looking ahead to see if there is room for advance-ment in your agency. If specific technical and manage-ment career paths exist within your organization, be sure to highlight this during the interview process. In addition, providing examples of current staff promotions during the interview will go a long way in showing your potential and actions are true.

Responsive and Persistent – When you find a candi-date you think will be a good fit for your agency, be quick to respond and persistent in your pursuit of the individual. With a shortage of applicants, the quick responders are likely to be the front runners for the best candidates. Once you have settled on a candidate, be persistent and timely in maintaining contact and scheduling meetings such as interviews. Doing otherwise may give the candidate the impression that you aren’t that interested or be the “deal-breaker” between choosing your organization or a closely-matched competitor.

“The early bird gets the worm.”

Sometimes overlooked? Often your best recruiting tool is within your existing employee base. Employees who un-derstand what is expected of them, who receive frequent feedback and recognition, and who are challenged by their job duties will be your best recruiters. Remember to put equal efforts into building and maintaining the satisfaction of your current employees, as they have the most credibility with prospective employees.

Happy Hunting!

Janet Jakobe-Gray can be reached at (816) 756-0444 or [email protected]; Gary Strack can be reached at (913) 888-7800 or [email protected].


IntroductionOver the past 50 years, the wastewater industry has seen sig-nificant changes. From basic primary treatment, to second-ary treatment, to tertiary treatment, to ozone disinfection, to recycled water, to biosolids recycling—there are constant-ly new and improving technologies to help us do our job even better and continue to improve the world’s environ-ment. However, technology can only go so far—there will always be the human element that is necessary to operate and maintain these facilities. Whether it is a single opera-tor at a fully-automated facility, or a staff of 200, we must recognize that these individuals who are on the front line of operations and maintenance of wastewater facilities are critical to the success of the work that we do.

In addition to the changes in treatment technology, the workforce has changed. Specifically, a significant percentage of workers are nearing retirement. The majority of opera-tors and maintenance staff in leadership positions in their organizations are from the Baby Boom generation. As these individuals look forward to retirement, the industry must look forward and plan for tomorrow’s leaders. It is antici-pated that within the next five to ten years, the majority of supervisors, superintendents, managers and other senior level staff will turn over and be staffed with new individu-als. Along with planning for preserving the knowledge and experience of these retiring individuals, organizations must also plan for filling these positions with qualified and well-trained staff. Typically it boosts employee morale to promote from within. Also, existing staff are familiar with the orga-nization and have the technical expertise and knowledge needed to operate and maintain the organization’s facilities. So how does an organization capitalize on this in-house ex-pertise and supplement its staff’s technical skills with those skills necessary to successfully move up in the organization? How does an organization “grow its own”?

Changing DemographicsThe East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD or District) supplies water and provides wastewater treatment for parts of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties in California. The District’s water system serves approximately 1.3 million peo-ple in a 325-square-mile area extending from Crockett in the

north, southward to San Lorenzo (encompassing Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda), eastward from San Francisco Bay to Walnut Creek, and south through the San Ramon Valley. The wastewater system serves approximately 642,000 peo-ple in an 83-square-mile area of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties along the San Francisco Bay’s east shore, extending from Richmond in the north to San Leandro in the south.

The District’s mission statement reflects its commitment to the community and the environment:

“To manage the natural resources with which the Dis-trict is entrusted; to provide reliable, high-quality wa-ter and wastewater services at fair and reasonable rates to the people of the East Bay; and to preserve and pro-tect the environment for future generations.”

The District is a very attractive agency for employees. The employees are treated well, pay and benefits are above aver-age, diversity is celebrated, and there is excellent job security through the civil service program. In fact, it is so desirable to work at the District that the largest percentage of employee separations from the District is due to retirement. This abil-ity to attract and retain very good employees has been key to the District’s success in implementing its mission state-ment.

Around the year 2000, the District became aware of the fact that, based on national demographic trends, the District needed to think proactively to ensure a stable workforce as well as a smooth transition of management at the District. Based on data gathered by the District in 2003, the need became even more defined. At that time, 76% of District employees were Baby Boomers or older compared to 64% nationally. In addition, only 24% were Gen X or Y com-pared to 36% nationally. (Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964; Generation X’s were born between 1965 and 1984; Generation Y’s, or Millennials, were born since 1985.) The average age of an employee was 47, and the average age of a new hire was 37. On top of this, at that time 22% of the workforce was eligible for retirement.

Table 1 is a breakdown of EBMUD’s retirement projections for 2003 through 2008. From this data, it became very ap-parent to senior management that the greatest need for

LEADing the way in workforce planning

Maura A. Bonnarens, Senior Civil Engineer, and Polly A. Villarreal, Wastewater Plant Operator II, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Oakland, California


good talent to ensure a solid stable workforce was for the job classifications of field supervisors and of superintendents.

Table 1 - EBMUD Five-year Retirement Projections

Occupation/groups% Employees Projected to Retire (2003–2008)

Field Supervisors 65%

Superintendents 60%

Non-engineering professionals 38%

Managers 25%

Engineers 23%

Office support 22%

Blue collar 15%

Finding qualified candidates for field supervisor positions poses a particular challenge since the vast majority of the candidates for these first-line supervisor jobs have had am-ple opportunity to acquire technical proficiency, yet have not had similar opportunities to acquire management skills. These management skills cover a broad range of topics, from the more defined skills like project management to the “softer skills” such as good communication techniques. No matter how technically competent an individual may be, without the necessary management skills the likelihood of success in a supervisory management position is small. The District’s recognition of this “gap” between successful and non-successful supervisors became the genesis for what has come to be known as the EBMUD LEAD program.

Fundamental Principles of the LEAD ProgramThe LEAD program is a voluntary career development pro-gram for District employees. The focus is providing jour-ney-level staff the skills necessary to compete for first-line supervisory positions. The idea of improving the skills of existing EBMUD employees has the advantage of providing motivation for existing employees to advance their careers; typically it boosts employee morale to promote from within. In addition, existing staff are familiar with the organization and have the technical expertise and knowledge needed to operate and maintain the organization’s facilities. Finally, by providing promotional opportunities within the District, there is less of a chance for good employees being lured away by better offers. At the District, it costs approximately $100,000 to recruit and train a new employee from the out-side within the first year of hire. Therefore, although there are costs associated with the development and implementa-tion of a management skills training program, there are very real cost-saving benefits to be realized by promoting from within.

A task force consisting of division managers from opera-tions, maintenance, and human resources developed the LEAD program in-house. The task force members had a vested interest in the successful development of a program, as well as a commitment to work together in partnership

to realize their goal. The task force started with a review of the current situation. They identified anticipated vacancies, analyzed the work performed by individuals in those va-cancies, identified the competencies required, reviewed the existing candidate pool to identify existing competencies, defined the “competency gap,” and then developed plans to bridge the gap.

As part of their planning, the task force developed a list of key attributes of a successful supervisor. These attributes in-cluded:

• Strong technical background

• Solid work ethic and commitment to learning

• Strong interpersonal skills for supervision

• Ability to organize work and manage resources

• Open to new ideas and continual improvement

• Strong communication skills

• Good problem-solving and trouble-shooting ability

• Demonstration of initiative and motivation

• Demonstration of computer literacy and ability to use relevant software

• Ability to relate positively and effectively with customers

The LEAD program was developed specifically to enhance the above skills that journeymen selected for the program may already have, and to provide opportunities to develop new skills that will be critical to their long-term career success.

Selection ProcessEligibility for application to the LEAD academy includes:

• Regular District employee with civil service status

• Employment in one of specifically identified job classes (painter, wastewater plant operator II, carpenter, etc.)

• Demonstrated satisfactory performance at the journey level

• Successfully passing a District competency test in basic-level arithmetic and writing skills

All interested participants must fill out an application to re-quest admission to the program. The program is limited to 20 individuals per academy session. For the past two acad-emies, selection has been competitive since there have been approximately 40 applicants for each session. Applicants must demonstrate competency in Math and English, pro-vide training and educational background, and provide re-sponses to six questions including descriptions of past lead-ership roles, identification of strong traits, and motivation for participation.

After the applications are reviewed and screened, individ-uals exhibiting the most potential are interviewed by the


individual’s upper management team. During the half-hour interview the applicants are able to further expand on their experience and qualifications for acceptance to the academy.

The selection process for LEAD academy participants in-cludes the selection of the students as well as mentors for the students.

Mentors are volunteers. The role of the mentor in the pro-gram is to teach, and provide guidance and support to help employees reach their career development goals. The men-tors are not meant to provide counseling for serious personal issues. The mentors should meet the following qualifications: be a trusted and credible leader; have breadth and depth of experience; be willing to share knowledge, experience and insight; be a source of inspiration and positive influence; enjoy developing people; have no record of disciplinary ac-tions in the last year; and complete a mentor profile form. The information on the mentor profile form provides an op-portunity for the mentor to share information such as past experience, significant achievement, and goals for being a mentor. The mentees review these forms and, after a kick-off meeting attended by the mentors and mentees, indicate their top five mentor preferences, as well as anyone they do not want to be paired with. The LEAD program coordinator then makes the matches using this information. There is a “no-fault separation” provision for mentor/mentee pairs so that if, once the mentoring relationship begins and the part-ners find they cannot work together, a different mentor may be found for the mentee.

CurriculumThe LEAD academy curriculum is a comprehensive program that includes formal classes (including homework assign-ments), development of a personal plan, assignment of a special post-graduation project in the participant’s work en-vironment to practice the skills learned during the academy, and mentoring sessions.

Formal ClassesFollowing is an overview of the key concepts covered in the classes. Each class has a follow-up homework assignment de-signed to reinforce the information learned in the class.

• Learning to Lead. Contrasts leading versus managing. Includes exercises for participants to gauge their “emo-tional intelligence” (i.e., self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills).

• Introduction to Project Management. Provides an overview of the project management process and the fundamen-tal concepts of initiate, plan, execute and control. Em-phasizes SMART goals—specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related—and the need for clear proj-ect objectives in order to ensure accomplishment of the project goal.

• Core Skills for Communication. Educates participants in

an interaction process to provide a framework for dis-cussion. These include:

- Open – purpose - Clarify – check for understanding - Develop – make procedural suggestions - Agree - Close

Also emphasizes the need to follow these key principles dur-ing the communication process:

- Maintain or enhance self-esteem - Listen and respond with empathy - Ask for help and encourage involvement - Share thought, feelings and rationales - Provide support without removing responsibility

• Business Writing. Consists of numerous grammar exer-cises including concise writing, e-mail etiquette, active/passive voice, and consistency in agreement and phras-ing. Provides as a tool a flexible planning sheet to assist in any type of writing.

• Rational Thinking Series. Provides tools for helping par-ticipants in planning, cause analysis and decision-mak-ing.

• Valuing Differences. Focuses on how to contribute each participant’s unique style, abilities, and motivations to ensure the success of his/her work group and organiza-tion. This includes showing others that you respect and value the unique qualities that make them different; working more collaboratively and productively with people who have a variety of styles, abilities and mo-tivations (SAM); and drawing upon the differences of each of your coworkers to achieve better results.

• Working through Conflict. Enables participants to become more aware of their individual conflict styles and the ability to recognize the style of others. Includes practice using different conflict modes—competing, accommo-dating, avoiding, collaborating and compromising.

• Situational Self-leadership. Educates the participants in how to identify what type of leadership they need from their bosses and what type of leadership is required for those who work for and with each of the participants.

Personal Development PlanAt the end of the academy participants are required to sub-mit a Personal Development Plan that identifies areas for further career development, the steps one will take to meet the development needs, and a timeline for taking those steps. During the first four weeks of the program, each par-ticipant is required to attend a career counseling session with the Employee Development staff. During this session counselors can help identify career development goals to include in the participant’s Personal Development Plan. In


addition, the participants receive guidance on how to create the development plan during one of the formal class ses-sions and receive feedback on a draft plan that is submitted as a homework assignment. The participants’ mentor can play an important supportive role in helping create the Per-sonal Development Plan.

To create a Personal Development Plan the LEAD participant under goes a self-assessment. This includes an assessment of their past performance and development of specific goals and action plans to improve future performance. The Per-sonal Development Plan is a key tool used in the program to help ensure that the learning and development process con-tinues past completion of the formal part of the academy.

Special Project AssignmentAfter graduating from the LEAD academy, participants are given a project. This project requires the participant to apply the skills learned from the academy as well as gain practical experience. This assignment can also be used as a topic of discussion during interviews for future jobs to highlight the skills that the applicant possesses.

Mentoring SessionsThe mentoring component of the program builds on the expertise and experience of supervisory role models and fos-ters shared learning and development. The mentoring ses-sions are an opportunity for the participants to share the information they have learned and to receive feedback and perspective on these same issues, as well as related issues from the mentors.

ScheduleThe LEAD academy consists of 14 weeks of classes. Each class is eight hours. The District pays for four hours and the remaining four hours are the participant’s personal time. In addition, time outside of class is at least seven hours per week. That includes all reading that is required for the next week’s session, and any writing assignment. Participants are not allowed to work on any homework assignments during working hours.

Participants are required to meet with their respective men-tor at least two hours per month. These meetings can take place during regular work hours and the District pays for the time.

After graduation, each participant from the program selects a LEAD project from a few options developed by their man-agement. Once the topic is chosen the participant is required to create a work plan for the selected topic. Participants can work on the LEAD project during work hours and/or on per-sonal time. Most participants complete the project within a few months of graduating from the academy.

The LEAD Program as Experienced!The Candidate Experience – Polly Villarreal. As a part of the District’s overall workforce planning strategy, this pi-

lot career development program is designed to prepare Op-erations and Maintenance Department (OMD) journey-level staff to compete for first-line supervisory positions. Interest was high for the session I applied for, with over 40 employ-ees competing for 20 openings. Candidates represented all maintenance and operation divisions, in both water and wastewater. Some of these classes included plumbers, me-ter mechanics, instrument technicians, electricians, carpen-ters, mechanical maintenance, gardeners, heavy equipment operators, water system inspectors, and wastewater plant operators. This group was the second session of the pilot program, but the first to allow staff from the wastewater de-partment to participate.

Only ten slots were allowed for wastewater and it was my intention to occupy one of those positions. The program sounded interesting and frankly I wanted to be one of the first wastewater employees who would participate in the LEAD academy. Not to mention that, if chosen, my efforts in the academy would enhance the quality of my skill-set to become a new supervisor as well as assist me in better iden-tifying the expectations for supervisory positions.

Selections were completed in August of 2004 and twenty em-ployees were selected for the academy. An effort was made to ensure the different classifications were represented and also to distribute the training opportunity among the divi-sions as well as work units. Recruitment was successful in obtaining a diverse candidate pool. This diversity was good since it allowed for different perspectives to be shared dur-ing the class time. All the participants shared in the same desire for furthering their careers and moving into supervi-sion. This shared goal and sense of motivation created an excellent learning environment.

The training curriculum consisted of twelve classes with training on learning to lead, understanding the District’s “big-picture,” project management, business writing, com-munication skills, critical thinking, decision-making, valu-ing diversity, conflict resolution, and situational leadership. The trainees also developed an action plan to help them meet their personal and professional goals. I believe the class schedule was well rounded and the information covered in-creased my core skills for competing for promotional jobs. The development of a personal action plan is something I will continue to do since it is a valuable tool for realizing your goals.

The academy consists of eight hours of training per week for fourteen weeks. Realizing the benefit to the District as well as to the employee, the classes are scheduled half on paid time and half on the employee’s personal time. Even with the District covering part of the time, it was a major com-mitment of personal time, with no guarantee of a new job at the end of the program. At times, the uncertainty of the outcome made the participants feel that we were jumping through the hoops for potentially nothing.


The extensive writing and writing one’s thoughts and feel-ings every week about what was learned and how it could be applied was very intense and a benefit unto itself. Initially some of the topics seemed too “touchy-feely,” but eventu-ally those aspects of self-awareness and interpersonal skill development fell into place with the overall scheme of in-creasing one’s leadership and supervisor skills.

Some trainees were not so fortunate in their choice of men-tors; they only met once or twice. Although some met more frequently, some trainees felt that the mentor was just giv-ing them more homework and not really helping them put the tools together or demonstrating how the tools we were being taught could be applied. It appeared that the mentors were just giving them a list of things the mentee should do or projects that could be done that did not relate to what was being taught in the academy.

It was difficult at the end of the academy when things start-ed to unravel somewhat. By this I mean those thoughts of “What is coming next?”, “Will I get a promotion?” and “Was it all worth it?” all came cascading down. However, I just kept my eye on my goal of acquiring tools to improve my skills to be a competitive candidate during the next round of hiring. I also tried to use the skills immediately and not wait for the work-out-of-class assignments (i.e., temporary District promotional assignments used to fill in extended va-cancies during the permanent recruitment process). Many of the skills I learned can be used at work, home and other areas of one’s life. How good you get at these skills is just a matter of constantly practicing.

If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I would. The benefits of the program are tremendous, and it is up to each participant to make the most of it all to be able to gain from it.

The Mentor Experience – Maura Bonnarens. There were several motivating factors that provided the impetus for me to volunteer as a mentor for the fall 2004 LEAD acad-emy. First of all, the fall 2004 academy was the second acad-emy yet the first one to involve wastewater staff, so there was specific outreach done to wastewater supervisors to par-ticipate. The outreach materials provided an overview of the LEAD program, which piqued my interest. My first reaction was to jump right in and volunteer, since I thought there was much that I could offer a mentee. However, I already had numerous work-related commitments, such that my personal time appeared to be reduced to the bare minimum necessary to keep my sanity, so I decided to not submit an application.

Shortly after I made the difficult decision to not participate, I was approached by a manager that I highly respect who asked if I planned to participate. Specifically he mentioned that there would be at least one female operator involved and he thought it would be good to have me as a female role model in the program. That simple statement was very

powerful—it made me realize that I had always been very lucky in my career of having excellent mentors. I stopped and thought about where I may have been at that point in my career without their support, and I realized that it would be very selfish of me to not volunteer. In addition, all of my mentors had been men. Although I do not believe it made a tremendous difference in the quality of mentoring, I realized that to some women it might make a difference. I believe that if one is motivated to achieve a goal, one finds the time to do so no matter how busy they may be; I knew I could make it work.

My office is about three miles from the wastewater treat-ment plant. I am primarily at the plant for meetings with other engineers and senior level staff from the operations and maintenance division. This amount of limited interac-tion results in my feeling a bit out of touch with many of the operators and maintenance staff at the plant, especially the journeymen level. Being a mentor would provide an ex-cellent opportunity for me to bridge this perceived gap; it would allow me to better understand the view of the world from their perspective.

There were very selfish motivating factors also. Probably foremost was the desire to ensure a secure, stable future for the District since I intend to stay at the District for a very long time. Ensuring that a good management team was in place and ready to step up to the challenge is key to realizing this. Also, from my past experience as a mentor for others, I know that there is a great deal of personal satisfaction as well as personal growth that one can gain through mentor-ing. I looked forward to experiencing that again.

From my perspective there were numerous good aspects of the mentor part of the LEAD program. These included:

• The students selected their own mentors. I believe this helped ensure a better chance of success for the mentee/mentor relationship.

• The mentee/mentor relationship helped the mentees interact with management in a relatively informal en-vironment. I believe this assisted the mentees in recog-nizing that managers are “real” people. In sharing past experiences and lessons learned, mentees recognize that management skills are not necessarily something that comes automatically preprogrammed. I believe this pro-vides hope and incentive that the mentee’s goal can be realized.

• The role of mentor was not a huge time commitment.

• Polly and I regularly discussed the information she was learning in her classes. I believe that the curriculum that was developed is excellent; it really encompasses the key aspects of what it takes to be a good supervisor.

• The mentee/mentor relationship continued past the end of the formal classes for a required three months. I be-


lieve that this extension of the mentoring past the time frame of the formal coursework helped to strengthen the role of the mentor, and helped the mentees retain their focus while completing the program (i.e., comple-tion of the special project).

A number of items in the program could be improved. These include:

• There was no real guidance given to the mentors. Al-though this allowed mentors to tailor the relationships to meet the needs specific to their mentee and in re-lation to the mentor’s style, it also left me wondering what I was really supposed to do as a mentor in this pro-gram. Perhaps a one-on-one check-in with the program organizers is needed to augment the monthly mentor roundtables.

• Mentors were not actually assigned until about a month into the program. I think it should be done much sooner.

• There was very little time between the submittal of the draft Personal Development Plan and the submission of the final version. This provided little opportunity for us to work with our mentees on discussing the com-ments and feedback they received prior to finalizing their plan.

Bridging the Gap at Your AgencyEast Bay Municipal Utility District is not the only agency facing large retirement-related employee turnover in the not-too-distant future.

We recognize that many agencies may not have the inter-nal resources to develop and implement a program similar to the District’s program. However, there may be ways for smaller agencies to work together on a similar leadership development program, or even develop one through your WEF Member Association. In addition, many of the con-cepts presented in the classes can be taught one-on-one be-tween mentor and mentee. For small agencies, this may be the most effective way to proceed.

The District has seen a definite benefit to its employees and overall organization from this program. A number of the promotional hires since implementation of the program have been LEAD graduates. This tangible benefit reinforces the motivation of the former participants as well as encour-ages new people to participate in the program. EBMUD ap-pears to be well on the way in proactively planning for to-morrow’s managers.

Maura Bonnarens can be reached at (510) 287-1023 or [email protected]; Polly Villarreal can be reached at (510) 287-1522 or at [email protected].

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he utilization of GIS technologies is quickly becom-ing ubiquitous as a tool that delivers significant value in managing Capital Improvement Programs. GIS systems have been established as the foundational

source of information and data used to support analytical modeling and the subsequent decisions arising from those analyses across numerous disciplines in both the private and public sectors. The applicable breadth of its application con-tinues to expand from its use to support the collection and dissemination of census data, to the World Healthcare Orga-nization’s utilization to support its efforts in battling hunger and disease around the globe. GIS is also used as a rapid response tool for disaster recovery and homeland security.

The value of GIS technologies in support of the public sec-tor’s obligation to provide services to their constituents is equally compelling, given the constraints associated with our current economic climate and the critical state of dis-repair within our nation’s infrastructure. Always present is the danger associated with the disasters (natural and man-made) that GIS is a critical resource in helping to manage and resolve.

How exactly can GIS technologies support the public sector in its efforts to optimize its public infrastructure investment decisions? The answer lies in the use of the technology as an integrated tool within the Capital Program Management (CPM) process employed by the public sector.

Let’s consider what CPM really is today, but with an under-standing of its evolution. CPM in its original state was actu-ally defined in the context of simply formulating a Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for the purpose of identifying the capital budget to be allocated against the capital projects planned for a given year. The formality of the generation of a publishable CIP really came to pass in the last 7-10 years, with the planning horizon initially being a one-year look ahead. The recognition of the importance in the generation and execution of a CIP became significant as the financial community (those responsible for municipal bond ratings) began to link the ability of a municipality to plan for, man-age and execute against a Capital Plan relative to the man-agement of their fiscal requirements. With this new consid-eration, municipalities began to look at the CIP process in

a more robust and critical manner. Suddenly, the ability to plan and execute against its programs over a longer horizon became critical. Annual planning horizons became three-year horizons which in turn became five-year and 10-year horizons. In the case of utilities we are often looking at 30- to 50-year planning horizons.

Today we see the convergence of long-term planning (strate-gic and comprehensive) with the near-term planning func-tions typically associated with the Capital Program. We see the need for the plans to be reflective of the actual state of health of the municipality but in the context of “time” and fiscal, political, environmental and public safety constraints. This is NOT a static state. The conditions are dynamic and fluid. Planning must therefore be continuous, flexible and analytical and should be based upon the best data and in-formation available.

So what is it that makes GIS so valuable to the CPM process? It is the ability to acquire and manage information and data, and synthesize and model that data relative to optimizing the Capital Plan and subsequent execution of that plan, then utilizing that data as part of a continuous planning func-tion. It is also the ability to use this same data and models to facilitate the convergence of long-term strategic planning and near-term Capital Program planning. GIS technologies are a critical “span” in bridging these planning functions. They provide the ability to integrate disparate information thereby enabling the integration of individual functions/de-partments within the municipality which again will lead to greater optimization.

Consider the following scenarios:

• The Transportation Department in a city government agency undergoes a planning operation to optimize bus and emergency vehicle routes. Upon completing the planning process the plan is put into execution without consideration given to the capital projects that have also been planned by the Public Works and Utilities Depart-ments. Within weeks of implementing the new trans-portation routes, the Utilities Department commences to tear up the streets which had just been identified for the new bus and emergency vehicle routes.

Geospatial Capital Program Management

Art KahnVice President Sales and MarketingCIPPlanner CorporationSanta Clara, California


• Public Works plans to tear up Main Street and repave it in the month of August, only to have Utilities come tear up that same stretch of Main Street three months later for their capital projects.

Municipalities are beginning to recognize the value of in-tegrating GIS technologies with the CPM process. This new way of planning will result in benefits directly carried to the bottom line. In one case, Hernando County, Florida, cited as a key consideration the ability to integrate CPM with their GIS functions.

The above scenarios are the obvious ones but relevant none-theless. Let’s go beyond that and imagine being able to do the following:

• Acquire all the information associated with all of the capital projects performed over the last five years and do so by geographic district. Acquire all the information relative to each of these districts, profile them in terms of population, traffic patterns, asset conditions relative to streets, sewers, water, and crime patterns, and then look at the capital projects that have been undertaken in these districts and the results realized. Imagine then being able to utilize this data to evaluate other districts in terms of these profiles and optimize the Capital Pro-gram utilizing that data. An agency can link the plan-ning, execution and financial functions together thus demonstrating to the financial community (S&P, Fitch, Moodys) the ability of the municipality to manage its fiscal policies and Capital Programs in an efficient and effective manner.

• Resiliency planning, the need for it and the ability to ef-fectively do it has become one of the most critical issues faced by the public sector. Consider the impact of the hurricanes in the past few years in the Southeast and Southwest, and the flooding throughout middle Amer-ica, and take into account the earthquakes in the West-

ern region. Imagine being able to capture the predictive models from the National Weather Service relative to hurricanes for various regions and integrate those mod-els into the capital plans with respect to infrastructure projects, resources, etc. Or think of integrating geologi-cal earthquake models with capital projects considering asset condition assessments, population distribution, etc. into a resiliency plan for a community. Consider the cost savings associated with the ability to effectively do resiliency planning. The better the planning the better prepared. The better prepared the higher the probability of reducing the magnitude of the destructive results and reducing the fiscal costs to the community, insurance companies, and the federal government.

The above scenarios are examples of what GIS technologies coupled with Capital Program Management can mean to our municipalities and agencies responsible for delivering our services. It is this blending of technology and its cre-ative use that will be the catalyst by which our communities will benefit the most. The financial constraints under which municipalities now must operate are driving the adoption of these types of technologies and their broader utilization. Geospatial Capital Program Management (GCPM) is the next iteration of the planning function, and the next suite of tools that will integrate the planning, execution and fi-nancial functions into one simultaneous fluid and effective process.

Art Kahn is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for CIPPlanner Corporation which has been providing innovative and reliable software solutions to the public sector since 1998 with a specific focus on Capital Program Management. He has more than 25 years of experience in the Enterprise Application Software domain with an emphasis on the delivery of technology and business solutions to the government sector. He can be reached at (408) 213-0133 or [email protected].


ow, more than ever, there is a need for stronger project man-agement protocols in public works departments.

As of the end of Q3 2008, tax revenues are down across the nation in virtually every state and local community. Some states have raided infrastructure trust funds just to provide operating funds. Construction costs have skyrocketed as fuel costs and material costs continue to escalate. Meanwhile, our U.S. infra-structure continues to age and dete-riorate and there are real documented needs for repair or replacement.

The near collapse of the U.S. invest-ment banking industry exacerbates the problem by making less investment funds available for private funding of infrastructure.

While the cry “Do more with less” has resounded through the decades, this time it is real. Until someone comes up with a “non-raidable” trust fund, or some other creative means of funding public infrastructure, we will have to do more with less, particularly funding new construction.

Although public works agencies have been in the construction business since before we were a nation, historically we have not done a good job of “doing more with less.” Truth be told, we have not done a good job as stewards of the public trust. No less a respected organi-zation than AASHTO recently conduct-ed a study of over 26,000 transporta-tion projects in 22 states delivered over a five-year period and learned that over 83% of the larger projects (>$5mil) ex-ceeded their bid price; 30% of these exceeded over 10% of their bid! Bear in mind that these are state depart-

ments of transportation experienced in project delivery with an internal or-ganization focused on project delivery and with an annual TIP in the multi-millions of dollars. How much more difficult is it for a smaller public works agency that has to use the energy and experience of its senior people to deal with the challenges of a less sophis-ticated operational system and ever-present political concerns?

In order to maintain the confidence of the communities that our public works agencies serve, we need to routinely do two things:

1. Maintain construction cost growth as <5%.

2. Deliver >85% of our annual CIP.

We need to do those two things day af-ter day, year in and year out. Only then can we go to our public and ask for ad-ditional funding while maintaining their confidence in us to deliver on our promises. In a fairly sophisticated pub-lic works agency with which I worked in the Southwest, construction cost growth routinely exceeded 13% until it devised and deployed a program to manage and control construction cost growth. After implementing this program, the agency reduced cost growth to less than 5%. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary—more so now than ever before.

What are the typical causes of construction cost and why can’t we deliver what we set out to?According to the AASHTO study, the preponderance of cost growth was blamed on “construction surprises.” The study goes on to assert that under-ground conditions, inability to obtain permits (environmental), inability to get right-of-way and inability to get

utilities relocated were the primary causes. In a municipal public works environment, political concerns and political and public acceptance are ad-ditional causes. How many of these “causes” are really surprises? We know that virtually every project needs some form of permitting; most need right-of-way and many have utilities that need to be moved. Building a public project and spending public funds always en-tails involving the public. Why, then, are these surprises? Just like in design, there is a process with a timeline to accomplish each of these tasks. Inte-grate them into the project delivery process just as you would with design and manage these activities accord-ingly. With respect to underground conditions, the savvy project manager or public owner will not shortchange the underground investigation, even if he thinks he knows what the investiga-tion is likely to uncover.

What can a public works agency do to improve their project delivery track re-cord? There are several steps that a well-run agency needs to do. These can be considered “best practices”:

1. Build a culture of project man-agement within the organiza-tion. This is more than lip service and more than simply “hoping” to do bet-ter (hope is not a strategy). This means instilling within the organizational culture a fundamental precept that projects will be delivered to the pub-lic on time and within 5% of the low bid. While not difficult, such a cultural change means that senior management will conduct periodic reviews of project status including not only design sta-tus but the status of utility relocation, public acceptance, right-of-way and

Seven public works project management best practicesMichael Ellegood, P.E.Senior ConsultantPSMJ Resources, Inc.Newton, Massachusetts


permits. Such a cultural change means that project managers will be trained in project management skills and pro-tocols and that program and senior managers will follow up to support and guide the project manager throughout the project delivery process.

2. Integrate planning, design and construction oversight into a seamless project delivery process. While the three phases of project de-livery have different purposes and the skills to deliver each phase are differ-ent, there must be integration of the phases for a project to be successful. This is particularly true between the design and construction phases. What is designed must be constructible—particularly by the low bidder. This means regular oversight of the design process by knowledgeable construction managers, preferably the construction manager who will be onsite during the construction phase. Phase integration means having a formal transfer pro-cess as the project moves through the phases. While the plan assembly is a widely recognized transition document between design and construction, the Project Charter should be widely ad-opted to transition between the plan-ning and design process.

3. Develop and utilize a formal “Release for Construction Pro-cess.” A single individual, senior in the management chain, should have the sole authority and responsibility to release a project for bid. This individ-ual should interview both the design project manager and the construction manager and review a checklist prior to signing off on the plan assembly, re-leasing it for construction. This release should include verification that quality checks have been made, that utilities are out of the way, that permits have been obtained, and that the right-of-way has been acquired. It should also contain an acknowledgement that the public has accepted the project and that it may proceed. Finally, it should include a statement that the plans have been reviewed for constructibility and,

where appropriate, maintainability by a knowledgeable individual.

4. Manage right-of-way acquisi-tion, utility relocation and en-vironmental permitting as you would design. If you ask any of the individuals responsible for the above activities, more than likely they will explain that they get involved in the project too late in the game and then are expected to move mountains to get the permits or approvals. In your organization, flow-chart the steps that must be taken to obtain these permits or that right-of-way. Consider how long it takes. Right-of-way acquisition by a public agency is a highly struc-tured process with statutorily-mandat-ed time lines. In many cases, by stat-ute, acquisition cannot be significantly compressed. So respect the rules and integrate those persons responsible for gaining permits, right-of-way, and ap-provals into the project delivery pro-cess. Make them part of the project delivery team and respect their proto-cols and processes. Above all, start the processes early enough in the delivery cycle so they can get what you need when you need it.

5. Establish a “shadow” project management accounting sys-tem that is an effective tool for the project manager. Every public agency has an accounting system that is based on a federal model, fiscal year and governmental chart-of-accounts. These accounting systems were de-veloped in response to audit findings over the years. Unfortunately, they do not work well as a tracking and con-trol tool for a project manager. Thus, in too many cases, project managers are forced to rely on outdated or stale accounting reports that do not address project-specific charges. The end result is that too often a public sector project manager simply does not have good, timely and accurate financial informa-tion on which to base project decisions. Contrast this with our colleagues in the private sector. Private consultants’ business is based on project delivery

on time and within their agreed-upon budget. Going over budget will guaran-tee the financial failure of the project and, over time, the firm itself. Thus, a good project financial management system is vital to a private firm. We, in the public sector, need to adopt a sys-tem that allows the project manager to track project costs and schedule (in-cluding right-of-way, permitting costs, utility costs, public acceptance costs, design costs and in-house oversight). This system needs to be compatible with the public accounting system, al-though it will gather different data and be used for project management not public accountability.

6. Never rely on software to man-age your projects. Too many public agencies when faced with the inability to deliver projects on time launch a quest for the “ideal” project manage-ment software. Software is nothing more than a tool for a project manager to use. It is not a substitute for a culture focused on project delivery or for proj-ect management training, nor will it assist in getting the all-important per-mits. Consider software as the 9/16ths wrench in the toolbox. Whether the wrench is made by Snap-On, Crafts-man or is a cheap knockoff, it will do the same thing. First, develop the cul-ture; then get the simplest software that your project managers can use, one they can apply to their project in minutes and get real-time results on which they can make informed judg-ments; and, finally, report the status of all projects to senior management.

7. Respect the project managers. In the private-sector consulting world, the most respected position is that of project manager. In most consulting cultures, management exists to as-sist the project manager—acting as a check and balance, providing oversight (sometimes more than the individual project manager might like), distribut-ing resources and acting as a mentor. Most members of senior management came up through the ranks of project

continued on page 54


“We have been asked to provide some kind of warning system for our ballparks that would protect the kids when they’re play-ing baseball and a storm comes up. They

had heard about it from some other city and it was some kind of warning system. Can you help?”

I am assuming they weren’t talking about a for-mal siren warning system that we would expect to have in place for tornadoes. Sounds more like the lightning protection systems that are used in ar-

eas that are subject to lightning storms. This system is com-posed of a network of lightning rods, metallic cable con-ductors and ground electrodes designed to safely conduct a lightning strike to the ground or prevent the park from being struck. There are many more complicated systems out there and I’m sure some of our members would be happy to share them with you.

“We currently use a leaf vacuum trailer that sucks leaves from the roadway. My problem is that the machine blows up copi-ous amounts of dust. This, in turn, makes

a mess and we receive a lot of calls from the public. Is there another machine that organizations are us-ing to eliminate or at least minimize the amount of dust that is spent from the top of the machine?” Dave Langdon, Alameda County, CA

One suggestion comes from David Cote, Direc-tor of Public Works, Brewer, ME. He suggests that you install water misters at the exhaust port of the vactor to knock down a good part of the dust be-

ing emitted. Of course, that means you’re going to have the particles collect on the equipment, but, as he says, “you can always wash it!” Anyone with another suggestion, please share it directly with Dave at [email protected].

“Okay, I’m confused now. I know what an HOV lane is and that I can’t drive my vehi-cle in it unless I have two or more passen-gers during the rush hours. But I recently

saw a sign for an HOT lane and I don’t have a clue what that means. ‘Drive only fast cars?’ ‘Use only when the temperature is 100 degrees plus?’”

HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes are designed to be used to expedite traffic flow for vehicles with multiple riders to encourage car pooling or reduce traffic congestion. HOT (High Occupancy Toll)

lanes allow solo-drivers to use the HOV lanes by paying a toll when there is space for more vehicles in those lanes. Tolls are debited from the driver’s pre-paid account electron-ically upon entry—no toll booth is required. Tolls are used to keep drivers in the HOT lanes flowing at 45 mph or faster even when the regular lanes are congested. Flexible pricing is what keeps the lane free of congestion at all times; the price will adjust up or down depending on the space avail-able in the HOT lane. Drivers can choose to use the HOT lanes or they can stay in the regular lanes. Several states are using the HOT system now and the jury is still out as to the success and acceptance of the users. If your state is using HOT lanes, let me know what your experiences have been and I’ll share them in a future issue.

“I was looking for the federal classifica-tion for public works jobs but I couldn’t find them listed. I must be looking in the wrong place. Can you direct me to that listing?”

Would if I could but I can’t because it doesn’t ex-ist! Public Works doesn’t exist either as an Occu-pation or a Profession in the Department of Labor Standards Occupation Handbook. The Body of

Knowledge Task Force was shocked to find that only a few references are made even to “public works”! But, hopefully, that will change. As the Task Force continues developing the work product, they will be coming to you with a variety of surveys asking you to help them determine what activities and services are actually performed by public works. Then another group will likely be asking you to help them devel-op a list of job titles that can eventually lead to job descrip-tions. They have a huge job but never fear—you, too, will


be asked to play a role in helping to gain formal recognition of public works as an occupation or a profession. Guess you just thought you were a public works professional!

“I’m beginning to see a few electric cars on our roads now. If what I’ve read about them is true, they can only run between 35 to 40 miles on a single charge. If these cars

are really going to become the ‘wave’ of the future, what are we going to be expected to do to provide for their needs?”

A spokesperson for Plug In America, a nonprofit advocacy group for electric car owners, says, “Ev-ery auto company in the world is developing all-electric or plug-in hybrids. The utilities, munici-

palities and smart business people are seeing that this is the future.” Most current electric car owners charge their cars at home while they sleep and their trips are short, so they aren’t a problem. The vehicles are street-legal “neighborhood elec-tric vehicles” so traveling long distances isn’t really a viable option. However, that doesn’t solve the problem for the cur-rent user who wants to drive twenty miles to a child’s soccer

game and needs to come twenty miles back home. Agencies are beginning to build plug-ins in parks and parking garages in anticipation of an increased demand. Some places pro-vide the service free of charge; others place a fee similar to an hour’s parking charge. Today, however, if all else fails, drivers are sometimes forced into negotiating the use of an electric outlet during a shopping trip or dinner. Looks like a good time for public works to be proactive and present the idea to your agencies before the public demands them!

Ask Ann…Ann DanielsDirector of CredentialingAPWA, 2345 Grand Blvd., Suite 700Kansas City, MO 64108-2625

Fax questions to: (816) 472-1610

E-mail: [email protected]

Please address all inquiries to:

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Contributing authors (by issue)

January: Emergency ManagementRosemary BaltchaDavid BarrRebecca BilderbackAnn DanielsCurtis EdwardsLarry W. FrevertJulio C. FuentesSusan M. HannTeresa HonCora Jackson FossettDan JensenDiana LindermanJanice PinnowTeresa ScottBruce SlagoskiBrian R. UsherLaurence W. Zensinger

February: Water ResourcesJulia AnastasioBill BruceJelynne LeBlanc BurleyTena CampbellJohn CassisKin Joe ChengJason E. CosbyJames CurrieAnn DanielsAlexandra Dapolito DunnLarry W. FrevertMichael J. GravesPaul A. HindmanWilliam Lim Chuan HoeMichael KenelJohn LisenkoAlyssa M. LopezTrey MaddoxLayton MengGerry MillerTim PrinceKarl Santa

Joshua SchimmelMatt SingletonNancy StonerRobert StoopsJoseph SuperneauNguan Sen TanTom TriceColene Vogel

March: Solid Waste ManagementJulia AnastasioBruce ClarkDaniel CooperAnn DanielsJimmy B. FosterLarry W. FrevertKathy GilwitGeorge HainesKyle HansenConnie HartlineKeith A. HowardDwayne KalynchukPerry M. LopezJim MartinZiad MazboudiElizabeth OlenbushRick PersonDavid RabinerMarc J. RogoffKenneth H. SeimsColene VogelRobert L. Westly

April: Facilities and GroundsJulia AnastasioAlisar AounTerry BerkbueglerLeonard K. BernsteinJay W. BradleyBruce CameronJohn ConroyAnn DanielsDavid Fain

Paul R. FredrichLarry W. FrevertJennifer GulickConnie HartlineD. Michael HicksPeter B. KingRobert P. MiataDouglas J. OgurekMichele S. OhmesAl OlsonHeidi PollmannJim ProceMarc C. RohdeWilliam A. SterlingColene Vogel

May: Top Ten Public Works Leaders of the YearAnn DanielsMaggie DoucetteLarry W. FrevertPeggy M. PoundGary D. StrackBrian M. SullivanCarole Copeland ThomasHarold L. Welborn

June: Engineering and TechnologyJulia AnastasioHernan AristizabalMichael J. BartonDavid BraxtonReed Bolton ByrumChris ChristensenAnn DanielsCarol S. EstesJoe FennellMichael FraserLarry W. FrevertJoseph GrennyGeorge HainesJeffery HoganBrett A. Howey

Tom KuennenSteve KynerdRobert LewisBarbara MackoffWilliam B. MeyerElise MooreRichard B. NassiAshley Scherzer

July: Transportation and Projects of the YearHelena AllisonAnn DanielsJohn T. DavisRichard DealMaggie DoucetteCarol S. EstesLarry W. FrevertCraig GarrettDebbie HaleJason HarringtonLisa HarrisDwayne KalynchukJoel KoenigRenae KuehlAndrew LemerChris PetersonJeffery RamseyMargaret RayWilliam ReichmuthWendy L. Springborn-PitmanKen ThortonRichard WestBecky Wickstrom

August: Congress Show Issue and Utilities and Public Right-of-WayJennifer AdamsT. Mark AndrakaCarla P. AndersonJohn H. BaileyWilliam E. BalinMichael J. Belak

Thanks…to our contributing authors and advertisers for making 2008 another great year for the APWA Reporter!


David BraxtonDeodat BudhuHughston Caldwell, IIIRichard CoatesMichael CrawfordAnn DanielsThomas DoranMaggie DoucetteSandy Doyle-AhernCarol S. EstesAlicia FaragLarry W. FrevertJan HerbstDonald P. JohnsonDwayne E. KalynchukWilliam KappelArt KahnWilliam K. KoskaDean LeymanJean LichtfussSid LockhartJuan LopezHarry LorickMyles McKemieJohn MeolaDaniel MitchellNiall MoynihanGina Ruffin MooreRon OliveEric PetersonWilliam RobertsonJim RothJay T. SpurginTim SumnerScott A. SwiderskiJesse VanDeCreekIan VaughanRoss VincentAnn WeaverDavid WhiteWillard J. WrayMonty Zimmerman

September: Fleet ServicesRaymond U. AcuñaTrish AragonBrittany BarrLaura M. BerkeyByron BrowningAnn DanielsSusan M. HannLisa HarrisConnie HartlineBrenda HerrmanTeresa HonDavid HigginsHalsey KingNancy KuhnJohn McCorkhill, Jr.Noel Thompson

October: Congress HighlightsRebecca BilderbackR. Kevin ClarkAnn DanielsJim FaheyTeresa HonChas JordanAaron KellerJoel KoenigJay McArdleRoss MoodyJeffrey RobertsWilliam SterlingNoel Thompson

November: Winter MaintenanceDuane E. “Dewey” Amsler, Sr.Rosemary BaltchaAnn DanielsR. Mark DeVriesMike FraserJohn GermanSusan M. HannEric HartmannTeresa HonDavid JamesJohn KlostermannLayton W. LambJuan J. LopezSteve StewartNoel ThompsonChristine WalshJenifer Willer

December: Leadership and ManagementMaura A. BonnarensAnn DanielsEric DarganMichael EllegoodJimmy B. FosterAlan Gould

George HainesJanet Jakobe-GrayArt KahnMaggie OldhamJohn OstrowskiWilliam SterlingGary StrackNoel ThompsonPolly A. Villarreal

Advertisers (for entire year)Access Products Inc.Accu-Steel, Inc.AEBI & Co.ALM CorporationAMECAmerica West Environmental SupplyAmerican Water Works AssociationAPWA Western Snow & Ice Confer-ence

Asset AuctionsAssetWorks Inc.American Road & Transportation Builders Association

ATL Disaster Recovery, Inc.Belt CollinsBig Truck RentalBlock ‘n RollBrandon Industries, Inc.Buchart-Horn, Inc.Burns & McDonnellCaterpillarCDMCemen TechCentral Parts WarehouseCIPPlanner CorporationConsort Display GroupCover-All Building SystemsCretex Specialty ProductsDannenbaum Engineering CompanyDEL HydraulicsDesignovations, Inc.Dixie ChopperDonaldson Company, Inc.Doosan Infracore Portable PowerE-Z LiftEast Jordan Iron WorksEnterprise Information SolutionsEnvista CorporationErosion Tech, Inc.ESI Consultants, LtdESRIFilterraFlink Co.Ford Motor CompanyGateway Industrial Products Inc.Gee Asphalt Systems, Inc.GreenHeat TechnologyGVM Inc./Snow Equipment SalesHarris & AssociatesHDR Engineering, Inc.Henke Manufacturing Corp.Historical BricksHolt TechnologiesHubbell, Roth & Clark, Inc.Hustler Turf Equipment

Icon GroupInfo Tech, Inc.International Association of Emer-gency Managers

International Road Dynamics, Inc.KBRThe Kelly Group Inc.Kundel Industries, Inc.LA Consulting, Inc.LeeBoyLyCox Enterprises, Inc.Magswitch TechnologyManhole Adjustible Riser Co.Mattern & CraigMAXIMUS, Inc.MBCompanies Inc.MCP IndustriesMetal Forms CorporationMidwest Rake Co.MJ Harden Associates, Inc.Mobile Awareness, LLCMohawk USAMonroe Snow & Ice ControlMuncie Power ProductsNational Society of Professional Engineers

Neenah Foundry CompanyNilfisk-Advance TechnologiesNTech Industries, Inc.OPW Fuel Management SystemsO.R. Colan AssociatesPacifiCADParagon Partners Ltd.PBS&JPinPoint GeoTech, LLCPixxuresPrecision Concrete CuttingPRO MAC Manufacturing Ltd.Pulltarps ManufacturingQuixote Transportation Technolo-gies, Inc.

QPRR.S. Technical ServicesSchonstedt Instrument CompanySchwarze Industries, Inc.Seal MasterSNI SolutionsSnow DragonSoil Retention SystemsSpecialized Services Company, Inc.Spin ScreedSterling TrucksSun Valley LightingSWA Groupthomas engineering group, llc.TMA SystemsTranspo Industries, Inc.Turbo Technologies, Inc.TYMCO International, Ltd.Upper Iowa UniversityURSUSABlueBookVanguard ADA Systems of AmericaWade TrimWEST Consultants, Inc.The Willdan Group of CompaniesZanetis Power Attachments, Inc.


Please go to www.apwa.net/WorkZone for information on how to submit a position advertisement on the website and in the APWA Reporter.

Physical Services Operations ManagerGlastonbury, CTThe Town of Glastonbury announces the following position: Physical Services Operations Manager (Public Works Director); Salary Range: $68,133–$91,962; Open Un-til Filled. Successful candidate must have five (5) years of demonstrated, professional responsible experience supervis-ing a Public Works Highway or Fleet division. A bachelor’s degree in business administration, public administration or construction management is desirable. A combination of education and experience will be considered. Starting Salary DOQ. Please visit the Town’s website at www.glastonbury-ct.gov for detailed information and application. Information is also available in Town Hall at the Customer Service Center, 2155 Main Street, Glastonbury, CT 06033 or call (860) 652-7501. AA/EOE

Technical/Field Marketing DirectorAsphalt Pavement Association of IndianaIndianapolis, INStatewide trade association seeks part-time Technical/Field Marketing Director. Job duties will include statewide travel and relationship-building with city, county and state public officials and decision makers, private consulting engineers and commercial developers. Will represent association in technical matters with members, INDOT, and Indiana cit-

ies and counties. Perfect for a recently retired public works official who has knowledge of and a passion for asphalt con-struction. Position may be home-based anywhere within Indiana. No benefits; expenses reimbursed. 15-20 hours a week; $22,000–$25,000 annual salary. Excellent verbal/writ-ten communication skills required. Contact [email protected] or call (317) 632-2441.

Deputy Director of Public WorksSt. Augustine, FLDeputy Director of Public Works for the City of St. Augus-tine. Requires BS/BA Engineering, PA or CM, minimum five years experience with two years at a supervisory level. Florida P.E. preferred. Municipal background in operations, mainte-nance, engineering and construction activities within trans-portation and utilities applications. Superior interpersonal skills and customer service orientation is essential. To apply visit www.staugustinegovernment.com for an application. Résumés and applications can be sent to P.O. Box 210, St. Augustine, FL 32085 or e-mail [email protected]. Extensive background and pre-employment physical with drug screen required.

Used Equipment for SaleTwo (2) 2000 Isuzu’s NRE’s chassis with Tymco 300 Air Sweep. 9,000 and 5,000 miles respectively, both with very low hours. Always garaged and in excellent condition. As seen as shown. Contact John A. Rugg, City of Worcester, Massachusetts, at (508) 799-1500 or [email protected].

manager and have faced the issues that project managers face. This same cul-ture of respect needs to be fundamen-tal to us in the public sector.

With all this as background, what is the public works agency direc-tor to do?First of all, take a look at your project delivery record of the past few years. What is your construction cost growth? What percent of the annual CIP was ac-tually delivered in the intended year? If the results are not acceptable to you, take a look at what caused the problems. Is it caused by the typical inability to

obtain permits, move utilities and ob-tain right-of-way? Are your customers making changes late in the process and causing redo? Are you having problems with design quality? Are your consul-tants or design team delivering proj-ects late? What about the underground conditions—are you having problems with soil conditions or hidden utilities that you did not find during the design process? Once you have identified the source of the problem you are well on your way to fixing it. Meanwhile, start institutionalizing some of the seven protocols outlined above.

With foresight, good planning and a little bit of luck your project delivery

will be just fine. In which case, it is time for celebration. Announce your victory, let the public know that their public works agency is doing just fine, thank you, and will continue to deliver projects needed for the community on time and on budget. Good luck!

Michael Ellegood, P.E., was Director of Public Works for Maricopa County, Ariz., for more than 20 years. Michael is the author of The A/E Project Managers’ Primer on Working with Public Sector Clients and leads PSMJ’s Public Works Project Management Bootcamp. He can be reached at [email protected] or www.psmjpublicsector.com.

continued from page 49


Products in the News

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Bid Express, the mar-ket leader in sealed, secure Internet bid-ding, is now offering per-project pricing.

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Rubber Hose Products offered by Clean Seal,® Inc.Clean Seal®, Inc. has announced that it is of-fering a line of rubber hose products to com-plement their lines of ex-truded rubber seals and gaskets. According to Bill Dawson, Vice President and General Manager at Clean Seal, “Many of our seal and gasket custom-ers use hose products in

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Timberline™ Tree Shear with 110° rotationSidney Manufac-turing introduces their 2009 line-up of Timberline™ Tree Shears. The innova-tive Timberline™ HTC-

14 and TBL-1000 Tree Shears offer many advantages when it comes to the job of selectively removing unwanted trees; in-cluding the ability to rotate after the cut to serve as a grapple to lift, wrangle and carry the fallen tree. The tree can then be easily and efficiently cut into load size or firewood size pieces with the Tree Shear. Sidney’s Timberline™ Tree Shears utilize a pin-up style mount or universal coupler to attach to existing tractors, skid steers or mini-excavators adding versa-tility and value to existing equipment. To learn more about Sidney Manufacturing’s Timberline™ Tree Shear, go to www.sidneyattachments.com and view a five-minute video.

AccuSpeechMobile voice technology by Vangard Voice SystemsThe Clark County, Nev. Public Works Department adopted Vangard Voice Sys-

tems’ AccuSpeechMobile voice technology to increase field worker productivity and operational efficiency and de-crease operational costs. By replacing mobile keyboards and paper-based systems with hands-free, eyes-free, voice-pow-ered data collection, Clark County is improving mobile field inspector productivity, safety and data collection accuracy. Once projected productivity gains are realized, the applica-tion will be adapted for inspection of other county assets, including signalized intersections, sidewalks, signage, traffic medians and pavement conditioning. During a beta test of Vangard’s AccuSpeechMobile technology, Clark County re-duced time to inspect electronic pull-boxes from 18 minutes to less than four minutes. For more information, visit www.vangardvoice.com.


PB Loader introduces new Hybrid Pothole PatcherPB Loader has introduced the first Hybrid Pothole Patch-

er designed for asphalt road repairs. The PB Hybrid Patcher features an electric hybrid generator and battery system that improves fuel economy and reduces harmful emissions. PB Patchers are fully equipped so you can tackle patching jobs with just one man and one machine. All PB Patchers feature an insulated and heated asphalt box that keeps asphalt hot and usable all day. PB Patchers let you repair potholes, road shoulders and utility cuts all day and provide highway and street departments with a single machine solution for year-round patching. PB Patchers are available in truck mounted, trailer mounted, hook-lift and slip-in models. For more in-formation, call (800) 350-8521 or visit www.pblcorp.com.

Hustler Turf Equipment introduces electric zero-turning-radius lawnmowerHustler Turf Equip-ment introduces the world’s first all-electric zero-turning-radius riding lawnmower. The Hustler Zeon™ is the result of groundbreaking innovation and precision

engineering. The Hustler Zeon™ features nearly zero main-tenance with no belts, filters, fluids, pulleys or plugs and is very inexpensive to operate. The welded steel deck guar-antees the outstanding quality that Hustler Turf is known for. Features and benefits include: up to 80 minutes of mow-ing time – enough to mow over one acre; no engine noise – much quieter than gasoline-powered equipment; high blade-tip speed for beautiful quality of cut; dual electric transmissions for true zero-degree turning maneuverability. Look for the Hustler Zeon™ at your local Hustler dealer be-ginning spring 2009.

Underhill M-125 long-throw sprinkler features decoder option for two-wire operationUnderhill introduces the M-125, a long-throw sports field sprinkler

with a unique range of features, including a 4-inch pop-up height, opposing nozzles for uniform coverage, and through-the-top servicing. Designed to syringe synthetic and natural turf, the M-125 covers a 125-foot radius with a 30° to 360° adjustable arc. Through-the-top servicing prevents damage to synthetic turf because the field surface does not need to be cut apart to access the sprinkler’s internal mechanism. The M-125 is also one of the few long-distance rotors avail-able as an electric valve-in-head with the capacity to handle a field decoder in a two-wire system. With the valve-in-head option, the M-125 accepts two-wire decoders used in Under-hill’s 2Wire control systems. Two-wire connects all valve-in-head sprinklers (or valves) to the central irrigation controller with the use of a single set of two wires. For more informa-tion, visit the website at www.underhill.us.

Leave the heavy lifting to usBayne Premium Lift Sys-tems, manufacturer of the world’s best-selling refuse cart lifters, introduces its C/I Task-master™ series of lifters for a wide variety of material han-dling applications, including waste disposal. The C/I Task-master series is compatible with standard two-bar carts and tilt trucks equipped with lifting

bars. Using a C/I Taskmaster lifter, an employee needs only to wheel the container to the lifter and press the “up” but-ton. The lifter then automatically secures the cart to the lift plate, picks it up and dumps it. With a press of the “down” button, the cart is automatically returned to the ground. C/I Taskmaster lifters can be equipped with casters for mobile use, be mounted to loading docks to enable easy dumping into roll-off refuse containers or be mounted directly onto trash balers or compactors. For more information, call (800) 535-2671 or visit the website at www.baynethinline.com.

Xplore’s iX104C4 “Wildcat 4” mobile PCXplore Technologies Corp. an-nounces its new iX104C4 Tablet PC, nicknamed the “Wildcat 4.” The Wildcat 4 design implements sunlight-readable display technol-ogy, dual-mode flexible user inter-

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condition—in the field, below ground, on a forklift, in a ve-hicle, or on a mobile cart. For more information, visit www.xploretech.com.

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Affordable, simple, effective and green, PinPoint – Public Works™ generates 40%-plus fuel savingsPinPoint – Public Works™ generates 40-60% savings, depending on your debris pickup method, by reducing fuel used and miles

driven. PinPoint – Public Works™ is a system proven by municipalities that positively impacts the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Part of the PinPoint – GeoWorks Government Solutions Suite™, it is easi-ly-implemented, patented technology that yields dramatic benefits and is exclusively tailored for government. It de-livers simple, affordable and effective GPS technology that manages curbside debris removal—and can be extended to encompass code enforcement and disaster risk mitiga-tion. More information is available at www.pinpointpub-licworks.com or by calling (877) 477-9494.

Hot PocketGreenheat Tech-nology is proud to introduce the Powerblanket Hot Pocket to its inno-vative line of Eco-

Friendly heating solutions. The Hot Pocket is designed to

heat and maintain an ideal temperature for up to 6 bags of Cold Patch Asphalt, or any other temperature sensitive materials. The Powerblanket Hot Pocket utilizes a patent-ed heat spreading technology coupled with an efficient 12 volt heating system to generate up to 90 degrees of insulted heat in a 4’x3’ zippered bag. The Hot Pocket comes com-plete with your choice of 3 electrical adapter; Cig-Adapter, Alligator Clips and a 7 Prong Hitch to choose from. It is the ideal companion product for the Powerblanket Hot Box.

Magnetic Manhole Lifters from MagswitchMagswitch Technol-ogy Inc. has uncovered a better way to lift man-hole covers without the strain and injury associ-ated with the standard manhole hook or shov-

el. Fingers are broken, back muscles are twisted and pulled, and cities lose hundreds of man-hours and pay thousands of dollars each year specifically related to manhole cover in-jury. The Magswitch Manhole Lifters virtually eliminate the chance of injury by keeping your employees in control of the manhole cover, and its lightweight design and ease of use will keep your employees productive and safe. Would you spend one minute to save thousands of dollars per year? Contact Magswitch today for more information, visit www.magswitch.com.au, or call (303) 242-7010.

CIPPlanner provides fully integrated CPM solutionCIPPlanner Corporation introduces CIPAce™ 6.0 with enhanced project management features and its new UI mak-ing navigation simple and the application even easier to use than its previous 5.3 version. CIPAce™ provides a single platform solution for Capital Program Management (CPM) on a real-time basis across the organization. All the historical capital planning and analysis information, capital budget, actual and encumbrance expenditures, project schedules and resources are managed by one single solution. As more municipalities employ what has been termed a “continuous planning process” capable of addressing the changes and resultant impacts to the overall strategic and master plans, there is greater need for the new project management fea-tures of CIPAce™ 6.0 and its fully integrated CPM solution. For more information call (866) 364-8054 or send e-mail to [email protected].


Safe & Dependable

Automatic & Semi AutomaticTarp Systems

Simply The Best!(800) 368-3075www.pulltarps.com

North American Snow Conference

April 26-29, 2009Des Moines, IA

Hydrologic & Hydraulic Studies

Wastewater Treatment Facilities

Water Supply Systems

F t Worth 817.763.8883Austin 512.345.8505Houston 713.520.9570

Dallas 972.239.2002

McAllen 956.682.3677

www.dannenbaum.com

Engineers

Planners Surveyors

DANNENBAUM

...a pattern of excellence

Program/Project ManagementRight of Way & Real Property Acquisition

Appraisal/Appraisal ReviewRelocation AssistanceProperty Management

Title & Utility Research & Coordination

Paragon Partners Ltd.1-888-899-7498

www.paragon-partners.com

APWA Reporter ad2.125 X 2.3125

02/26/2007

construction engineering services in the chicagoland area

[email protected]

Sustainability Series #3: Green Transportation and Smart Growth

January 15, 2009

Visit: www.apwa.net/education


Manhole adjustment problems?

Need Help?We Have Solutions!

www.manholeriser.com

ADJUSTABLERISER CO. INC.

641-672-2356 • 1-800-785-2526Fax: 641-672-1038Oskaloosa, Iowa

TM

IN HALF THE TIME

Metal Forms Corporation • www.metalforms.comPhone: 414-964-4550 • Fax: 414-964-4503

Cut concrete forming time in half with Poly Meta Forms®. This

revolutionary system out performs wood hands

down. Ask about our “Sidewalk Construction Kit” designed for Public Works Crews.

(816) 333-9400 • [email protected]

Engineering and ConstructionServices for Municipalities

FIND IT ALLUNDERGROUNDP H O N E / P O W E R L I N E S , M A N H O L E S , P I P E S , C O N T R O L W I R E S

800-999-8280www.schonstedt.com

NPDES: Good HousekeepingDecember 18, 2009www.apwa.net/education/cll

A World Leader in Landscape Architecture

Landscape Architecture • Planning Urban Design

www.swagroup.com


UPCOMING APWA EVENTSInternational Public Works Congress & Exposition2009 Sept. 13-16 Columbus, OH2010 Aug. 15-18 Boston, MA2011 Sept. 18-21 Denver, CO2012 Aug. 26-29 Indianapolis, IN2013 Aug. 25-28 Chicago, IL

For more information, contact Dana Priddy at (800) 848-APWA or send e-mail to [email protected].

North American Snow Conference2009 Apr. 26-29 Des Moines, IA2010 Apr. 18-21 Omaha, NE

For more information, contact Brenda Shaver at (800) 848-APWA or send e-mail to [email protected].

National Public Works Week: May 17-23, 2009Always the third full week in May. For more information, contact Jon Dilley at (800) 848-APWA or send e-mail to [email protected].

DECEMBER 20084 APWA: Click, Listen & Learn, “Bridge Maintenance,” (800) 848-APWA, www.apwa.net

9-10 Damage Prevention Conference and Expo, Las Vegas, NV, www. damageprevention.com

11 APWA: Web-Based Training, “Sustainability Series #2: Retrofitting Existing Buildings Using Green Design,” (800) 848-APWA, www.apwa.net

18 APWA: Click, Listen & Learn, “NPDES Good Housekeeping,” (800) 848-APWA, www.apwa.net

JANUARY 200915 APWA: Web-Based Training, “Sustainability Series #3: Developing Green Transportation for Smart Growth,” (800) 848-APWA, www.apwa.net

18-21 National Asphalt Pavement Association, 54th Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, www.hotmix.org

22 APWA: Click, Listen & Learn, “Private Partnerships for Public Needs,” (800) 848-APWA, www.apwa.net

27-30 International Slurry Surfacing Association, 2009 Slurry Systems Workshop, Las Vegas, NV, www.slurry.org

31-2/1 International Downtown Association, IDA Downtown Institute, New Orleans, LA, www.ida-downtown.org

When you contact an advertiser regarding a product, please tell them you saw their ad in the APWA Reporter. Thanks! – The Editor

Legend: IFC = Inside Front Cover; IBC = Inside Back Cover; BC = Back Cover

INDEX OF ADVERTISERS

America West Environmental Supply, p. 29

(888) 547-5475

American Road & Transportation Builders Association, p. 27

www.workzonesafety.org

AssetWorks Inc., p. 49www.assetworks.com

Burns & McDonnell, p. 59www.burnsmcd.com

CIPPlanner Corporation, p. 47www.cipplanner.com/APWA

Dannenbaum Engineering Com-pany, p. 58

www.dannenbaum.com

Designovations, Inc., p. 59www.designovations.com

East Jordan Iron Works, p. 38www.ejiw.com

ESRI, p. 1www.esri.com/publicworks

Gee Asphalt Systems, Inc., p. 58www.geeasphalt.net

GreenHeat Technology, p. 25www.greenheattech.com

GVM Inc./Snow Equipment Sales, p. 17

www.snowequipmentsales.com

Harris & Associates, p. BCwww.harris-assoc.com

HDR Engineering, p. 6www.hdrinc.com

Henke Manufacturing Corp., p. 58www.henkemfg.com

Holt Technologies, p. 59www.holttechnologies.com

Icon Group, p. 58www.iconjds.com

Magswitch, p. 39www.magswitch.com.au

Manhole Adjustible Riser Co., p. 59www.manholeriser.com

Metal Forms Corporation, p. 59www.metalforms.com

MJ Harden Associates, Inc., p. 58www.mjharden.com

Mobile Awareness, LLC, p. 59www.MobileAwareness.com

NTech Industries, Inc., p. 58www.weedseeker.com

O.R. Colan Associates, p. 58www.orcolan.com

PacifiCAD, p. 59www.pacificad.com

Paragon Partners Ltd., p. 58www.paragon-partners.com

PBS&J, p. 15www.pbsj.com

PinPoint GeoTech, LLC, p. 24www.PinPointGeoTech.com

Pulltarps Manufacturing, p. 58www.pulltarps.com

Schonstedt Instrument Company, p. 59

www.schonstedt.com

SWA Group, p. 59www.swagroup.com

thomas engineering group, llc., p. 58

www.thomas-engineering.com

TYMCO International, Ltd., p. 37www.tymco.com

Upper Iowa University, p. 2www.uiu.edu/apb

URS, insertwww.TheNewURS.com

WEST Consultants, Inc., p. 59www.westconsultants.com

The Willdan Group of Companies, pp. 12, 59

www.willdan.com

Name (please print) Organization

APWA Member # Shipping Address (No P.O. Boxes)

City State/Province Zip/Postal Code Phone

Fax: (816) 472-1610 • Mail Orders To: APWA • PO Box 802296 • Kansas City, MO • 64180-2296 REP1208

Standard S & H Chart for a subtotal of: add:Less than $9........................$5$10 to $39...........................$8$40 to $49...........................$9$50 to $59.........................$10$60 to $69.........................$11$70 to $79.........................$12$80 to $89.........................$13$90 to $99.........................$14$100 to $149.....................$15$150 + ......................add 10%

Questions? Call APWA at 1-800-848-APWA, ext. 5254 or (816) 472-6100, ext. 5254 (local calls), or www.apwa.net/Bookstore

Credit Card Info:Account Number (Visa or Mastercard)__ __ __ __—__ __ __ __—__ __ __ __—__ __ __ __

Account Number (American Express)__ __ __ __—__ __ __ __ __ __—__ __ __ __ __

Expiration Date: __ __ /__ __

Card Holder’s Name (Please print)______________________________________

Signature____________________________________________________________

S & H (see chart)

Delivery outside of Continental U.S.

Express Delivery 2-Day (Additional $20)

Express Delivery Overnight (Additional $50)

Total

Order Number Quantity (q) Price (p) Extension (q x p)

(International, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, contact APWA for additional service charges)

Expedited service available for $20 for two-day Express Delivery or $50 for Express Delivery Overnight. (Order must be received before 12:00 p.m. Central Standard Time.) Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery on all orders other than expedited service. All funds in U.S. dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice. For deliveries outside the Continental U.S. include standard shipping and handling from below chart plus you must contact APWA at 1-800-848-APWA, for additional service charges.

REFUND POLICY: The American Public Works Association strives to provide useful, current information to its members and customers. If you should have a problem with any item in your order, we encourage

you to offer us the opportunity to ensure that you are satisfied. Print products may be returned within 30 days of the invoice date, properly packaged and in saleable condition. (Please include a copy of the packing slip or invoice with your return.) Returns of student and instructor manuals for our training programs will be charged a 25% restocking charge. A full refund will be granted for all other returned print products except for specifically marked packages. Shipping and handling charges are nonrefundable. Photographs, software, CD-ROMs, and videos may not be returned. We appreciate your attention to our policy and look forward to providing you quality products and service.

Available from Leadership Resources

Payment Method: Credit Card:

MC Visa AmerExp

Check (enclosed)

P.O. # APWA must receive a copy of the Government (Local, State/Provincial or Federal) Purchase Order or prepayment prior to fulfillment.

Performance Measurement in Public Works: A Nuts and Bolts Guide for Public Works Professionals70 pp • 1999 • APWA • William B. Cook

Cut through the glitz and glitter surrounding performance measurement and get to the point with this how-to guide from William B. Cook. This book is a practical guideline from a public works perspective. It provides all the important tools you need to kick-start your successful performance measurement effort.PB.ANUT • Member $35 /Non $45

Public Works Performance Management: Creating Accountability and Increasing Performance72 pp • 2000 • APWA • William B. Cook

This book discusses performance management, accountability and performance measurement. After exploring these three terms, you can determine if your agency should renew or initiate its efforts, and get ideas on how to best proceed with those efforts.PB.APER • Member $30 /Non $40

The Ethics Edge (2nd Ed.) 251 pp • 2007 • ICMA • Edited by Jonathan P. West

This publication emphasizes the importance of ethical leadership and provides case examples of real-world ethical dilemmas faced by local government decision makers. You get practical tools and initiatives

to help you design ethics management policies and programs to meet the needs of your jurisdiction, and to resolve ethical dilemmas you may confront. PB.X702 • Member $59 /Non $69

The Leadership Challenge (3rd Ed.)496 pp • 2003 • Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Company • James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

The Leadership Challenge emphasizes that the fundamentals of leadership are the same today as they were in the 1980s, and as they’ve probably been for centuries. In that sense, nothing’s new. Leadership is not a fad. While the content of leadership has not changed, the context has—and in some cases, changed dramatically.PB.X318 • Member $20 /Non $25

Updated! Public Works Administration527 pp • 2008 • APWA

Nearly four dozen public works professionals have synthesized their experiences to provide the most up-to-date reference book available today on the full scope of public works. Starting with the premise of the 1986 ICMA “green book,” Management of Local Public Works, the authors have brought public works fully into the 21st century. PB.A748 • Member $55 /Non $65

New! Ethics...or Doing the Right Thing2008 • CD-ROM • APWA

Public works employees must maintain their performance to result in public trust and confidence. Obtaining that trust filters into both official conduct

and personal affairs. Find out how to balance this relationship and show that you have forged an ideal set of ethics for both yourself and your organization.

Represent yourself, your organization, your family and your profession understanding why ethical behavior is so important in today’s climate of mistrust of government and sensationalistic media.PB.E822 • Member $59 /Non $69

Program Management Construction Management

Civil Engineering Architecture

Municipal Services

S H A P I N G T H E

F U T U R EOne Project At A Time

IntegrityQuality

ReliabilityRespect

TeamworkFun

SM

Our core values guide our firm and the manner in which we manage and design your projects. These values, along with the expertise and dedication of our professionals, offer you the very best in project solutions and success.

harris-assoc.com

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APWA Reporter 12 2008

Documents

Transcript of APWA Reporter 12 2008